The Library in the Woods

After weather events destroy their crops two years running, young Junior’s Black family relocates to town. In Jim Crow–era Roxboro, N.C., Junior’s schoolmates tell him that “we have our own library”—a log cabin hidden in the woods, where “the books seemed to go on forever,” Ramsey writes. Junior carefully chooses a title each for himself, his mother, and his father—and in doing so learns that his father does not know how to read. Christie’s rich acrylic illustrations employ smudgy textures across town and country landscapes in this personal-feeling work about adult illiteracy that ends with a moving reflection on intergenerational connection and different kinds of knowledge. An author’s note concludes. Ages 7–11. (Aug.)