In Kekla Magoon’s newest book, The Secret Library, we meet Dally Peteharrington. A smart and adventurous 11-year old who has been feeling lost since her grandfather died. She relied on him to help her navigate a life of wealth, a life of means and a life with a rigid single mother who spends nearly all her days in her office making more money. It was Dally’s grandfather who helped her negotiate a free hour every day after school before her evening business lessons began, a time that belonged to Dally alone. It's during this free hour that Dally explores the mysterious map left to her by her grandfather: the map that would not only ensure a life of adventure opening at her fingertips but would ultimately lead her to her destiny.
Here’s our new What We’re Reading feature: a mini-book club conversation between Grand Rapids Area Library children’s librarian Tracy Kampa and What We’re Reading producer Tammy Bobrowsky.
This conversation has been edited for clarity.
Tammy: This book has all my favorite things. We've got libraries, we've got books, and we’ve got time travel. I'm a nerd for all three of these things, so I really enjoyed this story. How about you?
Tracy: I loved it too. Were you surprised at what the secret library held? Because it wasn't a secret library because people couldn't find it, although only the right people could. But why don't you describe what the secrets were all about?
Tammy: The secrets are people's actual secrets from their lives and somehow put into books. One thing that never got clarified for me: if strangers could come in and read about these people, or if it's only people that the secret is somehow related to, which is how I inferred it.
Tracy: I think when Dally was first introduced into the library, she was shown to her special room. I think everybody has their own special room. And the secrets are fascinating because they're filled with things that you don't want other people to know. And special things from a day and family secrets. So you could pick one of those secrets off of the shelf, open it, and then you would be there. And the magical thing was while you were there, no time went by back in your time. So Dally during her free hour every afternoon spent this magical time learning about her family's history.
Dally is a biracial child. Her mother is white, her father was black. He's deceased. We learned a lot about his family history (that Dally hadn't been told before) just by going to these certain times. Dally will also learn some interesting things about her mom and some really fascinating things about their family history from almost 200 years back.
Tammy: The parts with her mom were really interesting to me. We've got this mom who was just really so focused on work and carrying on the family business. And a lot of expectations for Dally from her, and also, not a lot of attention. You could really feel for Dally in that, so her being able go back and see some of her mother's past was really kind of heartwarming because her mother was a very different person when she was younger. So that was a really interesting revelation.
Tracy: Absolutely. We learned throughout the book that the secret library holds a destiny for Dally and Dally, has to make some pretty important decisions. And one of the decisions she made was completely unexpected to me. You are told when you go to your secret that there are boundaries to your secret. And at one point, Dally steps out of those boundaries and what happens after that was pretty incredible.
Tammy: And it's a lot for an 11-year old to go through. She's a wonderful character because she's smart, she's tenacious, she's brave, she loves adventure. She's able to navigate the worlds back and forth. So she's just a wonderful character to follow through the story. What are your thoughts on time travel? Are you a time travel fan? Were you confused by the rules? What did you think about that element in this book?
Tracy: I think the rules were laid out pretty straight and I loved the idea that Dally could pick a certain period of time and go to it knowing she could have a safe return. I'm not going to give anything away here, but she does make a change and chooses to break one of those rules. When she comes back, something has drastically changed. And trying to figure that out because it broke the rules that were set out for us was a challenge for my aging brain. At first, I thought, ‘hey, you can't do that.’ But yeah, they could, because inside the secret Dally had broken a rule. And everything was incredible and everything turned out fine. But I thought we had messed up the time travel thing. Turns out I was wrong.
Tammy: Time travel follows rules, but I think that's kind of what this author was going for--sometimes you need to step out of those boundaries and discover what you need to for yourself.
"A large old building, made of cut stones and sparkling glass, rose up in front of her. It stood steady, as if it had been there a hundred years. A flight of wide, shallow stairs ran up from the sidewalk where Dally stood to an ornate doorway. Carved into the stone above the pillars were three simple words: THE SECRET LIBRARY."From Kekla Magoon's "The Secret Library."
Tracy: Would this be a book that you would recommend to others and give me one reason why?
Tammy: Yes, I would recommend this because the writing was good. It was a good story. It really kept you moving forward. You always looked forward to where Dally was going to travel to next and what time period and what she was going to find out about her family. And so just overall it was a pretty satisfying read. How about you?
Tracy: I agree. I definitely would recommend it and have recommended it to some of my readers. One of the things that I really appreciated is how much history, particularly history of black Americans, was covered in this book and some of it is a really important reminder that something that we think of happening 200 years ago probably is still happening today and it's easy to be covered up, but I think we need to be made aware of it. I think it was a fascinating read.
Learn more about Kekla Magoon’s The Secret Library.
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