Please Bury Me in the Library
by
J. Patrick Lewis & Kyle M. Stone
Order:
USA
Can
Harcourt, 2005 (2005)
Hardcover
Read an Excerpt
Reviewed by J. A. Kaszuba Locke
I
f the title of this book doesn't grab readers, the picture on the jacket guarantees it. Three winsome (albeit skinny) mice are perched on a dark library shelf, holding a mouse-sized candle, with an open book resting against an apple-core for support. Their big-eyed look says, '
oh, my, we've been caught!
' But, what better place to be arrested than in a library? Kyle M. Stone's illustrious illustrations pair mice, men, women, and other beings with J. Patrick Lewis's fifteen poems in
Please Bury Me In The Library
. The title page shows a woman asleep in bed, covered with books (I can just imagine the dreams she must be having.)
I
like the divine poem on the front lapel that begins, '
Please bury me in the library / In the clean, well-lighted stacks / Of Novels, history, Poetry, / Right next to the Paperbacks
'. Then there's '
Flea-ting Fame
' which introduces, '
the famous Otto the Flea, / A fly-by-night, / Who dared to write / His Ottobiography?
' Book don't just grow on shelves, they also grow on trees, as '
Necessary Gardens
' testifies - '
Libraries / Are / Necessary / Gardens, / Unsurpassed / At / Growing / Excitement.
' The testimony of '
Great, Good, Bad
' is also worthy of note, '
A great book is a homing device / For navigating paradise. / A good book somehow makes you care / About the comfort of a chair. / A bad book owes to many trees / A forest of apologies.
'
I
hope I've given you just enough to entice you to you forage through the rest of Lewis's poems that glorify reading, language, and especially that wonder-of-wonders - the library and its attendant librarians. '
Ab-so-lu-tas-ti-cal
' Even the Acknowledgements are set to rhyme! If you're an avid reader like me (with book piles higher than I can count) you just have to have
Please Bury Me in the Library
amongst your stacks.
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