Pearl is an odd but genuine narrator, possessed of a complex and emotional inner voice warring with a stridently stubborn outer one. Literary references are peppered throughout (clarified with somewhat superfluous footnotes) in addition to a variety of tangential sidebars (the identity of whose writer becomes delightfully clear later on). Indeed, that love-of libraries, of books, and most of all of stories-suffuses the entire narrative. With the help of friends old, uncertainly developing, and new, Pearl must spin story after compelling story in hopes of saving what she loves most. Thus ensues an enchanting plunge into the underbelly of a failing library and a city brimful of secrets.
Vincent Millay is found to be missing, Pearl’s scream brings the entire neighborhood running. When the head of the library’s beloved statue of poet Edna St. Pearl Moran was born in the Lancaster Avenue branch library and considers it more her home than the apartment she shares with her mother, the circulation librarian. This is the way Pearl’s world ends: not with a bang but with a scream. Shelve this, the first volume of a projected three, with the graphic novels.
There’s an abstract air to the whole episode, but the plot trots along smoothly, and Riddell’s distinctive visual style shows off to better effect here than in the cramped art for his Edge Chronicles and other collaborations. Children who linger over the illustrations, ink drawings with occasional highlights in red, will find all sorts of odd, precisely depicted household objects and comical details among the gracefully posed human and animal characters. Here, she concocts an elaborate scheme to track down a gaggle of missing lap dogs and to trap a cat burglar-who actually turns out to be a cat. Munroe, collects odd single shoes and postcards from her parents (who are generally off on travels) and solves mysteries. A tale told in intricate, finely detailed pictures linked by occasional brief bursts of prose introduces Eloise-like young Ottoline, who shares a large apartment with hair-covered sidekick Mr.
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