When I packed to leave Canada and return home to Portland, books were the heaviest thing in my backpack.
I only managed to read a bit of The Sound of Things Falling by Juan Gabriel Vásquez while we were in Montreal. With a three hour layover in Toronto and a five hour flight to Portland, I managed to finish it and loved it. Having a personal connection to the time and place made it very powerful, but I think even people with no knowledge of what happened in Colombia in the 80s and 90s would enjoy the lyrical writing in this book.
In my pre-vacation post, I mentioned having a list of books I wanted to look for in Canada. We popped into a couple of bookstores while travelling, but both times, I didn’t have the list with me. Great planning! I tried to remember titles, but couldn’t so just browsed, looking for a Canadian title I could bring back to my classroom library. I like to bring back something that local libraries and bookstores won’t carry. I found The Magpie’s Library by Kate Blair, who was born in the UK, but now lives in Canada. The setting of the book is British, but it still fits my criteria.
Publisher’s Summary: Silva and her family visit her grandfather, only to find his health has taken a bad turn. As they struggle with this news, Silva seeks escape in books – at the local library.
But she gets more than she bargained for when a magpie guides her to a secret, magical room containing books that she can not only read, but that she can live. Silva finds herself in the worlds of the characters … who all turn out to be real people. People she knows.
There’s a catch, though: she soon discovers that the magpie has lured her to these books for selfish and dark reasons. Going back to the books could mean losing her soul …
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