Blog Tour: Don't Check Out This Book!

Welcome! I’ve been invited to participate in the blog tour for this awesome middle grate epistolary novel that tackles some serious issues in a fun and engaging way. There are puns galore (my fave) and important messages delivered without feeling instructional. Plus, M. Sarah Klise’s illustrations and the clever formatting of this book make it a winner. It’s so unique and clever, I am thrilled to tell you about it!

Here’s a bit from the publisher, “In the fully illustrated epistolary novel Don’t Check Out This Book!, fifth-grade reporters follow a trail of phone messages, emails, articles, texts, letters, reports, receipts, and more to clear the name of their beloved librarian and clear the local school board of bad apples with criminal intentions. Behind text and images ripe with laugh-out-loud humor and abundant wordplay, including too many puns to count, lies an important message about censorship and readers’ rights to choose their own books.

In Don’t Check Out This Book!, Appleton Elementary School has a new librarian, Rita B Danjerous. Not everyone in Appleton likes her unconventional methods or her infamous Green Dot Collection, which allows students to borrow books discreetly, without actually checking them out. Under Rita’s influence, students like Reid Durr and Ben Thinken, and even the absent-minded principal, Noah Memree, are staying up way too late reading. While Rita inspires the students and faculty alike, the new school board president and impeccably mannered shop owner Ivana Beprawpa is busy working to shut down the library and force students into uniforms available only at Beprawpa Attire. But what’s behind Ivana’s school uniform policy? A team of fifth-grade sleuths is determined to get to the bottom of Appleton’s juiciest scandal ever.”

In my opinion, this book has the clever wit, wordplay, and intriguing plot as The Phantom Tollbooth, and is just as delightful to read. I personally love epistolary novels and rarely see them in children’s literature. Another rarity is a moral of the story that is so enjoyed that it’s effective, but I really thought this was a great one. The message of censorship and choice is a great one for kids to learn, and a wonderful one too for the world of books and reading.

As soon as I finished reading this one, my children were eager to get their hands on it, and I have seen them giggling to themselves while they work on it. I’m excited that they found something that excited them and hope we can have some great conversations about it soon too!

I really suspect readers and their families and librarians will devour and enjoy this charming book that will make you chuckle in delight the whole time you are reading it. Don’t Check Out This Book, by Kate Klise, is out now and can be found through your library and wherever books are sold.

Thank you to Algonquin Young Readers for the free review copy (all opinions are my own)!