Kristin O’Donnell Tubb’s The Story Collector 2 – The Story Seeker is a mystery for 9 year olds about a girl who lives in the New York Public Library and can’t think of a single thing to write.<\/p>\n
Viviani Fedeler’s dad is the building superintendent, so home is an eight-room apartment on the second floor, above the picture collection and along from the lions. It is February 1929 and she can get to anywhere in that building with her eyes shut.<\/p>\n
She calls herself a story collector. She keeps what she insists is a captain’s log, thank you, not a diary.<\/p>\n
Then her teacher sets a story competition. The winner’s essay goes into the New York Times. And Viviani, who has spent her whole life certain she is a writer, sits down and nothing comes.<\/p>\n
That’s the heart of it, and it’s handled so kindly. Her best friend Eva already has her story ready and tells it beautifully. Merit knows exactly which photograph she’ll write about. Viviani listens and is proud of them both and horribly jealous at the same time, and the book says so straight out.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile a real mystery is quietly building at the circulation desk. Six rare medical books, all overdue, all borrowed within days of each other, all to the same address. Every borrower has a different name. And every letter the library posts comes back marked that nobody of that name lives there.<\/p>\n
The reading experience is lovely and busy. There’s a game of capture the flag across the library’s front terrace that ends in a lecture about the bronze flagpole bases. Three girls crammed into one toilet cubicle, standing on the seat so the night watchman can’t see their feet. A whole afternoon in the picture collection looking at a photograph of a panda, back when almost nobody had ever seen one.<\/p>\n
Each chapter is headed with a Dewey Decimal number and a SEE ALSO line, which is a small thing that readers who like lists and libraries will love.<\/p>\n
A note on the setting. The grown-ups talk quite openly about polio and tuberculosis, since this is 1929 and everyone is worried, and Viviani thinks about her favourite author losing two people he loved to TB. It’s a couple of pages, not a theme, but a child who frets about illness may pick up on it.<\/p>\n
Otherwise it’s warm and funny and full of brothers winding each other up.<\/p>\n
Start at the beginning if you can. The first Story Collector book has Viviani convinced the library is haunted, a prank that gets badly out of hand, and Merit arriving as the new girl who won’t play along.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Kristin O’Donnell Tubb’s The Story Collector 2 – The Story Seeker is a mystery for 9 year olds about a girl who lives in the New York Public Library and can’t think of a single thing to write. Viviani Fedeler’s dad is the building superintendent, so home is an eight-room apartment on the second floor, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":11487,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"lr_next_read_post_id":9433,"lr_next_read_anchor":"The first Story Collector book","lr_seo_hook":"A girl who lives in the New York Public Library and cannot write a word."},"book_tag":[22],"age_group":[24],"book_type":[1044],"book_author":[584],"class_list":["post-9434","our-books","type-our-books","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","book_tag-mystery-books","age_group-books-for-9-year-olds","book_type-paid","book_author-kristin-odonnell-tubb"],"yoast_title":"The Story Collector 2 – The Story Seeker by Kristin O'Donnell Tubb | Little Reads","yoast_metadesc":"A girl who lives in the New York Public Library and cannot write a word. For ages 9+. 3,000+ books in the Little Reads app. 7-day free trial.","acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n