Miss Moore Thought Otherwise: How Anne Carroll Moore Created Libraries for Children by Jan Pinborough (review)

For most children listening to a story in a public or school library, the library setting itself is a pleasant but unremarkable part of life, and book borrowing an equally unremarkable entitlement. Pinborough's picture-book biography of early twentieth-century librarian Anne Carroll Moore may nudge them out of their complacency, describing the children's literacy advocate's innovations at a time when free public libraries were just coming into their own, and children's materials and services were a pretty radical concept. Although Moore's story has its points of interest for a young audience—studying law, putting her own career plans on hold to help raise her nieces, moving off to the big city to learn librarianship—it's the nascent field of children's librarianship that will command interest. Locked bookcases and looming "silence" signs were giving way to more kid-friendly environs, and under Moore's watch, whole children's departments were designed and supplied, from child-scaled furniture to reading clubs and guest readers and entertainers. Atwell's cheery, doll-like figures and joyful colors are a good match for the woman who insisted that children's library space should be vibrant and stimulating. Expect giggles when kids spot the black-suited, bun-coifed, finger-wagging old-school harridan who "did not let children touch the books, for fear they would smudge their pages or break their spines" and hope you don't hear any unflattering comparisons. A historical note and list of sources is included.