A Library by Nikki Giovanni illustrated by Erin K Robinson

This is the perfect book to share tonight as libraries here in Australia, especially school libraries, have been gearing up to the BIG announcement tomorrow of our Children's Book Council of Australia [CBCA] Book of the Year winners. 

In my former school library we always voted for our favourites after reading all of the short listed picture books and early childhood picture books. I well remember the year we all hoped Gary would win and also another year when we all hoped for little Pog. It was disappointing when neither of these took the big prize but really making the short list is like winning. In 2021-2023 I was so privileged to be a judge for the Picture Book of the Year and the New Illustrator award. For the award this year over 200 books were entered in the Picture Book category. Of these over 60 went to our long list; then 25 on our Notables list; and six were short listed. So if a book is on the short list it certainly is very special.  Fingers crossed for your predictions - the winners and honour books will be announced tomorrow 18th August, 2023 at 12 noon. 

The text of A Library is an ode to libraries everywhere. Here is part of the text:

A library is a place to be free

to be in space 

to be a cook 

to be a crook 

to be in love 

to be unhappy 

to be quick and smart 

to be contained and cautious 

to surf the rainbow 

to sail the dreams 

to be blue 

to be jazz 

to be wonderful 

to be you 

a place to be yeah ... to be

Image Books of Wonder: In what other place can a child “sail their dreams” and “surf the rainbow” without ever leaving the room? This celebration of libraries is for everyone who loves stories, from seasoned readers to those just learning to love words, and it will have kids and parents alike imagining where their library can take them.

A Library celebrates the day a child visits her local library - this is something we take for granted but during the years in the US of segregation young children like the young girl in this book could not enter many libraries and her book choices were limited. On the final pages of this book Nikki Giovanni talks about her own personal library experience with her librarian Mrs Long who found so many perfect books for young Nikki. Another book on this theme is this one:

In this video Nikki Giovanni talks about her book and on this page you can see two other poems by Nikki Giovanni.

"Poetic text and evocative, textured illustrations work in concert to show how books and libraries enable people to imagine other lives-including other versions of their own selves.... A must-have." - School Library Journal

Here are two other books by Nikki Giovanni. The book about Rosa Parks is one I often shared with my older students - it is an amazing book about an inspirational woman.