The Giver of Stars
Author: Jojo Moyes
This #1 New York Times bestselling novel and Reese Witherspoon book club pick appealed to me from a historical perspective, so I ordered it for home delivery from the Orlando Library (what a fantastic service). This book is about four women who, during the Great Depression, rode horses and mules out into the wilds of Kentucky to deliver books for the federal government’s WPA (Works Progress Administration) to encourage literacy. Between 1935 and 1943, most rural residents didn’t have access to books, up to 30% of the population in Appalachia couldn’t read, and many were hungry to learn. And as reflected in this story, most of the mounted librarians were women.
The novel follows one group of mounted “librarians” by focusing on disenchanted new wife Alice Wright Van Cleve, who recently arrived from England. Her American husband, Bennett Van Cleve, along with his father, had been visiting overseas when they met Alice. After a short engagement, Bennett and Alice married and traveled back to Bennett’s family home in Kentucky. Now, unhappy with the change in her American husband’s interest in her and just to get out of her overbearing father-in-law’s house, Alice accepted the job of delivering books to outlying areas, where the families were isolated and often suspicious of strangers.
Over time, Alice becomes close friends with the three other mounted librarians, the farmer who provides the barn space to store the books, and the African-American librarian who uses her library skills to manage and keep track of all the incoming and outgoing books. As the story unfolds, the librarians are faced with ill will from residents, while one librarian even endures a trumped-up lawsuit. But the ladies will not be bullied by men or hindered by convention as they face all sorts of danger in a landscape that is, at times, incredibly beautiful and also often dangerous. They’re committed to their job – delivering books to people who have never had anything to read and arming those families with facts that will change their lives.
These main characters and several of the secondary characters are realistic; they confront and deal with all sorts of financial and social issues/hazards, the Great Depression not least among them. For me, the real friendship that develops between the four women who are so different from each other was compelling. There is a little bit of violence and a bit of romance as well, so it’s not surprising to find that there is a Hollywood movie in the works.
This book scored a 4.32 on Goodreads and an average reader review of 4.7 at Barnes & Noble, so I recommend it for book groups as well as personal reading. Also, it should be noted that there is an interesting question of “alarming similarities” mentioned on the web in relation to the novel The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek by Kim Michele Richardson, which is about the same subject. I’ll be reading that book as soon as it’s delivered from the library just to see for myself. Happy reading!
