THE LIBRARIAN OF BASRA, A TRUE STORY FROM IRAQ
Written and Illustrated by Jeanette Winter
Harcourt, 2005
Category: Picture Book; Biography
My daughter and I read this book earlier in the week. It seemed fitting, at the end of the long Memorial Day weekend, to read a book about bravery in the face of chaos and conflict.
In 2003, Alia Muhammad Baker was chief librarian of the Central Library in the Iraqi city of Basra. When war threatened her beloved library and its collection, Alia tried to convince public officials to allow her to move the books to a safer place. She was refused. As it became clear that the war would not spare Basra, Alia took matters into her own hands … and with the help of friends and neighbors managed to save tens of thousands of precious texts from the library’s collection. Shortly after her covert removal of books, the Central Library was burned to the ground.
Jeanette Winters’ vibrant, stylized illustrations perfectly complement her simple text. The book sparked a conversation about freedom and courage and difficult decisions and, to my great joy, about how we can help Alia rebuild her library. I’ve been looking into this last idea, and can share this website from the American Library Association. If anyone knows of other concrete ways for contributing to this cause, I would love to know about them.