When I sat down to read this book, I was excited and thought it would be a cute, fun children's book about an experience going to the library. I also thought that the message would be one that involved making the library interesting to children so they would want to experience it for themselves. BUT! I should have known not to judge a book by its cover! I never really took a liking to this book. It is a very stereotypical book that displays the father not really having a role in his children's life, the mom as a rich snob and of course the babysitter that comes and takes the kids to the library is a skinny blond teenager wearing a belly shirt and high heels. Another thing that made me mad was that even when the characters arrived at the library, EVERYONE in the library looked the same. There was no diversity whatsoever. What kind of message is this sending to our students? That only white, rich kids can have their nanny or babysitter take them to the library where they can read and checkout books? This hidden message could really hurt and have a harmful effect on a child who isn't Caucasian in your classroom.
This book also displays libraries as places with a lot of strict rules that are not always kid friendly, which in reality is totally wrong. As I read and saw what was going on in the illustrations I found myself cringing many times. The first thing I noticed was the babysitter just left the two little kids and was shown in the back on a computer with hearts on the screen (probably meaning she was talking to a boyfriend or doing something inappropriate when she was suppose to be working.) The librarian working would always be the one saying "no, we don't do that in our library" to Delilah whenever she wanted to do something that her pretend land could do.
I would not read this book to my class because although I believe it is important to have an imagination like Delilah did, that isn't how a library should be portrayed in a children's book.
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