A review by purplepenning
The Lost Library by Rebecca Stead, Wendy Mass

adventurous emotional hopeful mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes

5.0

The kind of adventurous, thoughtful, mysterious, empathetic story that can turn readers of any age into great readers.
  
These young readers felt things about books, which is why I call them great readers. Being a great reader has nothing to do with reading great sophisticated books or reading great long books or even with reading a great many books. Being a great reader means feeling something about books.

The Lost Library is told in three perspectives: 1) Evan, who is an inquisitive boy entering the last summer before middle school; 2) Al, a ghostly librarian who has lost her place in the world; and 3) Mortimer, a large orange cat who is dedicated, kind, and lonely. They are connected, tenuously, by a little free library, and more deeply by the mysteries of the former town library, another inquisitive boy, and the improbabilities of mice.
   
The dear boy was, as I've said, a great reader. He read a good number of books and, more importantly, he took some of them straight into his heart.

Fun, sweet, mysterious, sad, triumphant, and just a touch fantastical — it's a near perfect middle grade read.  
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