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Three good reasons to read the Ninja Librarians: The Accidental Keyhand, or the Ninja Librarians: Sword in the Stacks, with your Book Club or class...
Reason One: For Fun! A New Jersey kid who wants to wield a sword against villains -- (modernity mod-shmernity), a magical library connected to dozens of centuries, secret entrances, Roman Baths, rampaging aurochs, Petrarch's Library's thousand rooms, ancient roller-skates for zinging through them, warrior lybrarians with a "y", a pack of apprentices trying not to die, insufferable anti-suffragists, fashionably dressed camels, Dorris's guts, Marcus' conniving heart, Ebba's common sense (in the absence of distracting animal life), betrayals, besottedness, beseechings, Greek rhetoric gone awry, and a star-shaped stone that in the wrong hands will allow the Foundation to steal reading and writing from the world.
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Reason Two: Springboard to Interesting Questions About the Notion of Intellectual FreedomWhy have the ninja librarians devoted their lives to protecting writers who get into trouble for expressing their opinions and ideas? What does it mean to be a supporter of intellectual freedom? Is life better when people are afforded intellectual freedom? Worse? Is it ever dangerous for words to be spoken? To speak them? Why does speaking out take courage. How about listening?
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Reason Three: The Author Is Happy to visit with Your Book Club or Class
"The Author". That's me. Talking to kids about the books is one of my favorite things to do. Once your book club has read one or both books, I'm happy to arrange an online or in-person visit with your crew to answer questions about the books' characters, bits of history, themes, as well as the experience of writing these books, and writing in general. You can contact me at jsdowney@protonmail.com to arrange a time.
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