Librarians are superheroes – the keepers of stories, champions of intellectual freedom, truth tellers, supporters of shy and weird kids. 

I can tell you that banning books, burning books, blocking books is often used as a way to erase people, a belief system, or culture.

The Librarian of Burned Books by Brianna Labuskes is a histrical novel set during World War II that pays homage to the importance of protecting books, and the free flow of information and ideas they represent. It’s dedication reads ‘To librarians, the guardians of books’.

Books are a way we leave a mark on the world, aren’t they? They say we were here, we loved and we grieved and we laughed and we made mistakes and we existed. They can be burned halfway across the world, but the words cannot be unread, the stories cannot be untold. They do live on in this library, but more importantly they are immortalized in anyone who has read them.

The story follows three timelines through the points of view of three women devoted to the printed word. Althea is a naive American debut author visiting Berlin on a cultural exchange in 1933 who discovers the Nazi’s who invited her are not what they pretend to be; Hannah Brecht is a German Jew and lesbian who works at the Library of Burned Books (around 1936) and is involved with the Communist Party opposing Hitler’s rise to power – she was there when the Nazis torched huge pyres of banned books. Vivian Childs is a war widow advocating against 1944 censorship laws that would block her organisations efforts to send books to soldiers fighting overseas. The three women’s narratives interview and connect as they each try to fight for freedom of thought.

There are moments in life when you have to put what is right over what party you vote for. And if you can’t recognize those moments when the stakes are low—let me assure you, you won’t recognize them when the stakes are high. 

I thoroughly enjoyed The Librarian of Burned Books – strong female characters, great descriptive insights into queer Berlin, and the challenges for Paris and Brooklyn during the war, it’s a well researched, emotionally moving and provocative story with a hint of lesbian romance. What more could you want in a good story!

Burning books about things you do not like or understand does not mean those things no longer exist.