Libby-Come-Lately

by Jean Nielsen

Sixteen-year-old Libby leaves her family in Alaska to spend the school year with her aunt, the head librarian in a small town near Los Angeles.

246 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1960

About the author

Also wrote under the name "Hannah Sarver."

Reviews

[Laurie]

While flawed, this is an interesting teen novel that I highly recommend to YA librarians for its look at library services to teens in 1960. (Actually anyone involved with a library will find it interesting; in how many teen novels does the plot revolve around a bond election to fund a new public library?) I would like someone who lives in Southern California to read this and tell me which towns they think she's referring to (all the towns actually included in the story have fictional names). I suspect that Bethel, where the story takes place, is based on Claremont, though the five colleges are not mentioned. The exchange student from India is also an unusual element in the story.

The main character coming from Alaska to Southern California (to a small town replete with orange groves) makes it reminiscent of The Luckiest Girl (though Libby has much more trouble fitting in to her aunt's household and the high school than Shelley did). The Luckiest Girl was published in 1958.

[Wendy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoyable enough, but I kept thinking "ENOUGH with the library stuff"--which isn't my usual reaction to vintage teen romances; usually I like those school- and career- and hobby-related subplots at least as much as the main plots. Am already sensing the running motifs in Nielsen's work: librarians, bratty teenage girls, middle-aged romance, terrifyingly youthful marriages, peritonitis secondary to appendicitis.

[Gabrielle S · Rating 4 out of 5]

Things that will get me to give a book another star. If they are about librarians. Libby is kind of a spoiled brat who comes to live with her Aunt Emily who is a librarian. Aunt Emily has Modern Ideas and wants to build a new library. There are a lot of details about librarians in there and especially ones with Modern Ideas. Libby becomes more of a sympathetic character as the book progresses but you can see why no-one liked her to begin with.

[Melissa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thanks, Wendy! All the library stuff was surprising ...do you think teens in 1960 would have really been interested? Makes me glad there are so many choices of reading material for teens now. It would have been tough to read this kind of "romance" all the time. Which Maudler wants this book next?