The Lonely Book

When a wonderful new book arrives at the library, at first it is loved by all, checked out constantly, and rarely spends a night on the library shelf. But over time it grows old and worn, and the children lose interest in its story. The book is sent to the library's basement where the other faded books live. How it eventually finds an honored place on a little girl's bookshelf—and in her heart—makes for an unforgettable story sure to enchant anyone who has ever cherished a book. Kate Bernheimer and Chris Sheban have teamed up to create a picture book that promises to be loved every bit as much as the lonely book itself.

"Sheban's (A Night on the Range) moody light and deep shadows haunt this tale of a library book that, like the Velveteen Rabbit, waits a long, long time for an 'always-and-forever home.' The book's cover bears 'a picture of a girl in the forest under a toadstool,' and a girl named Alice falls in love with the book, loses it, then finds it again. The nameless book expresses emotion quietly but definitively: 'If someone had looked closely at the lonely book's cover, they would have seen that the girl under the toadstool had started to cry.' Bernheimer (The Girl in the Castle Inside the Museum) carefully calibrates the story's tension to draw readers in, switching between viewpoints; at the moment Alice realizes she's forgotten to renew the cherished book she's taken to the library, readers see the book waiting in the basement with other book sale books, 'lonelier than it had ever been.' It's a book about books, but more particularly a book about library culture; readers who make faithful weekly trips to their own libraries will be especially charmed. Ages 4 — 8. Agent: Maria Massie, Lippincott Massie McQuilkin. Illustrator's agent: Emily Inman. (Apr.)" Publishers Weekly Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

KATE BERNHEIMER is the author of the picture book The Girl in the Castle Inside the Museum, a Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year. Her most recent book for adults are Horse, Flower, Bird, a collection of stories, and The Complete Tales of Lucy Gold, the third novel in a fairy-tale trilogy. A fairy tale expert, she is the editor of My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me; Mirror, Mirror on the Wall: Women Writers Explore Their Favorite Fairy Tales; and Brothers and Beasts: An Anthology of Men in Fairy Tales. She is currently a professor of English at the University of Louisiana in Lafayette. Visit her at KateBernheimer.com.

CHRIS SHEBAN is best-known for his luminous jacket art for Kate DiCamillo's acclaimed novel, Because of Winn Dixie.  He is also the illustrator of many picture books, including Catching the Moon by the bestselling novelist of Bee Season, Myla Goldberg, and A Night on the Range by Aaron Frisch. He's been awarded three Gold and three Silver Medals from the Society of Illustrators. Visit him at ChrisSheban.com.