Book Review: The Secret Library by Kekla Magoon

Publisher’s description

Travel through time with National Book Award Finalist Kekla Magoon in a page-turning fantasy adventure about family secrets and finding the courage to plot your own life story.

Since Grandpa died, Dally’s days are dull and restricted. She’s eleven and a half years old, and her exacting single mother is already preparing her to take over the family business. Starved for adventure and release, Dally rescues a mysterious envelope from her mother’s clutches, an envelope Grandpa had earmarked for her. The map she finds inside leads straight to an ancient vault, a library of secrets where each book is a portal to a precise moment in time. As Dally “checks out” adventure after adventure—including an exhilarating outing with pirates—she begins to dive deep into her family’s hidden history. Soon she’s visiting every day to escape the demands of the present. But the library has secrets of its own, intentions that would shape her life as surely as her mother’s meticulous plans. What will Dally choose? Equal parts mystery and adventure—with a biracial child puzzling out her identity alongside the legacy of the past—this masterful middle-grade fantasy rivets with crackling prose, playful plot twists, and timeless themes. A satisfying choice for fans of Kindred and When You Reach Me.

Amanda’s thoughts

This book is GOOD. This book is so good that I was able to concentrate on reading it for two hours in the car place waiting room with a tv blaring and tons of conversations around me and no earplugs. That good.

It’s important to know it’s a not a secret LIBRARY (though it is—you can only access it if you know how to) but rather a SECRET library—a library of secrets. And Dally is about to learn a whole lot about many generations of her family. Now, I’ll tell you what. I have a pretty demented family. Most people I’m related to I have blocked in my phone with google alerts set up for their obituaries. Not good folks, folks. And what I wouldn’t give to go back and watch whatever defining moments from their history and from generations of messed up humans that led to them becoming the monsters they are. Truly. And for Dally, she plucks a book off a shelf, and zip! she’s back in time! She has to put together who she’s seeing and what the meaning is of what she’s witnessing, and she can only go so far in a secret or risk being stuck there and lost to history. Still grieving her grandfather and stuck with just her sort of robotically efficient mother, Dally has a lot of questions about her family. There was so many times while reading this I wanted to shout, “NO WAY!” when twists or identities were revealed. Dally learns far more than she could have possibly bargained for as she witnesses many generations of her family fight for love and freedom while grappling with identity and subverting expectations and norms of the time. And just when readers think there are no more twists to be had, nothing more that could possibly surprise them, the biggest twist yet while happen when Dally understands her true destiny.

This great read is a real page-turner and will especially appeal to readers who love family stories and readers who (like me) like their fantasy to be quite grounded in reality. An absolutely smashing read that everyone should pick up this summer!

Review copy courtesy of the publisher

ISBN-13: 9781536230888
Publisher: Candlewick Press
Publication date: 05/07/2024
Age Range: 8 – 12 Years

Filed under: Book Reviews