Where Is Our Library?: A Story of Patience and Fortitude

by Josh Funk, Stevie Lewis (Illustrator)

Overview

Where Is Our Library? is a companion to Lost in the Library and our second picture book in partnership with the New York Public Library.

Curious Patience and steadfast Fortitude wait every morning to greet visitors of the New York Public Library—and slip away every night to read in the Children's Center.

But one day, Patience and Fortitude find the Children's Center empty! The two lions set out into the city to locate their missing books and encounter some literary landmarks along the way.

Josh Funk's clever rhymes and Stevie Lewis's vibrant art take young readers into the heart of New York City in this latest adventure.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250241405
Publisher:	Henry Holt and Co. (BYR)
Publication date:	10/27/2020
Pages:	40
Product dimensions:	10.30(w) x 10.33(h) x 0.42(d)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Josh Funk is the author of several books including Lady Pancake & Sir French Toast, It's Not Jack and the Beanstalk, and How to Code a Sandcastle. Although he is allergic to cats, Patience and Fortitude have fur made of marble and caused no problems when writing this book.

Stevie Lewis has been living on the road, furthering her passion for climbing, art, and the outdoors. Striving to live simply and tread lightly on the earth, she gathers inspiration from a variety of places, be it climbing in the high desert in central Oregon, hiking in the wilderness of Alaska, or sharing laughs with fellow travelers around a campfire. After working for four years in animation, she now illustrates children's books and creates art based on her travels.

Stevie's books include A Week without Tuesday, Finding Serendipity, and Lost in the Library.

Editorial Reviews

10/01/2020

PreS-Gr 2—The famed stone lions of New York Public Library (Lost in the Library) are back for a new romp. This time they are searching for the entire Children's Center,; it has up and disappeared while they were outside guarding the library, as they do every day. A search through New York City and several of the branches of the New York Public Library system eventually leads them across the street to the new Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library. Of special delight are the covers of children's literature classics that are seen throughout the pages which will have readers exclaiming in recognition. These also work to further the connection between this new title and cherished books of the past. The illustrations are animated, capturing the streets at night featuring the dark shadows and bright lights of the big city. There is one section where the lions are outdoors in lower Manhattan and the background is very bright, which is inconsistent with the pairs' need to find the library before the sun comes up and they must resume their positions. Regardless, children will enjoy the engagingly illustrated lions with their anthropomorphic expressions and will be glad that all works out in the end with a new home for the Children's Center. VERDICT For children who live in or have visited New York City, this is especially appealing. For larger collections and those in the NYC area.—John Scott, Friends School of Baltimore

School Library Journal

2020-08-18
The New York Public Library’s iconic lions go in search of their vanished Children’s Center.

Following on Lost in the Library (2018), bibliobeasts Patience and Fortitude, stunned to find the shelves in their beloved children’s library on 42nd Street empty, set out on a rhymed, nocturnal hunt that takes them past a number of Manhattan literary landmarks and into several library branches before ending (spoiler alert) at the entrance to the Center’s new location across the street. Whether or not the Covid-19 pandemic throws the timing of this blatant bit of marketing for a loop (the opening has already been delayed once), the tour is rich in pleasures for children’s-lit fans—not only for its glimpses of library buildings and interiors both historic and up to date (Manhattan ones anyway, with one quick trip to the Bronx…Staten Island, as usual, gets the brushoff), but for the visual references to new and older classics that Lewis packs into many scenes. A formal announcement of the move at the end includes a key to books and branches included in the art. There are no human figures in sight until a final, thinly but diversely populated, daylight view of the old and the newly renovated libraries facing each other on Fifth Avenue. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10-by-20-inch double-page spreads viewed at 75% of actual size.)

Part valentine, part press release. (Picture book. 6-8)

Kirkus Reviews