I recently read James E. Ransome’s A Place for Us (Nancy Paulsen Books, August 5)—a wordless picture book about an unhoused Black mother and son—and was especially moved by a scene set at the public library. It’s a safe, well-lit space where the boy completes his homework, but it also offers them both soul-sustaining hope: The mother loses herself in a novel, while a flyer promoting an upcoming illustrator visit gives parent and child something to anticipate.

Ransome doesn’t suggest that libraries can solve issues as complex as systemic inequity, but his image of the boy dancing, arms spread, as he heads into the building makes it clear that these are special places. That’s something I’ve known since I was 6, holding my first library card and gaping at the rows of books before me: Here be dragons…and giants, talking pigs, and everything else to capture a small child’s imagination. As an adult, I still love libraries, and I’ve visited many over the years, from ultramodern, glass-encased buildings to cozily shabby ones. All give me the feeling of coming home.

This week, I’ll be attending the American Library Association’s annual meeting, held in Philadelphia, June 26-30. I can’t wait to connect with librarians, people who know better than anyone the transformative power of these spaces, but in the meantime, I’m making a few library trips—vicarious journeys to spaces found within the pages of several new kids' books.

First stop: Jenny Lundquist’s The Library of Curiosities (Holiday House, July 22), which follows an orphan interning at an institution that circulates everything from wish-granting pennies to an enchanted typewriter. The novel pairs beautifully with Jeanne Birdsall’s The Library of Unruly Treasures, illustrated by Matt Phelan (Knopf, August 5), which centers on a tween who, while visiting her great-uncle in Massachusetts, realizes that the local library is home to small, winged people—and that she may be their savior. These whimsical, emotionally bracing adventures feature characters who have known sorrow yet find magic at the library.

The wonders of a library can’t be contained within its physical walls, as Marzieh Abbas demonstrates with her picture book The Camel Library: A True Story From Pakistan, illustrated by Anain Shaikh (Feiwel & Friends, August 19). This uplifting tale follows a camel that transported books to kids in remote villages when schools shut down during Covid-19; the children’s unfettered joy is proof positive that libraries matter, no matter their form.

Readers may be surprised to see Kiah Thomas’ Lone Wolf Goes to the Library, illustrated by K-Fai Steele (Neal Porter/Holiday House, May 27), among these earnest tributes. Fans of this deliciously subversive early reader series know all too well that Wolf loathes nothing so much as the public. This installment finds him attempting to return an overdue book while dodging snot-nosed storytime attendees and the “stern librarian.” Thomas’ prickly protagonist remains obdurately and hilariously solitary to his core, even as he manages to support the local library on his own terms: curled up in his backyard, snout-deep in his latest library book, Allen Ginsberg's Howl. Libraries truly are for everyone—even confirmed grumps.

Mahnaz Dar is a young readers’ editor.