The Keeper of Stories

A TRUE TALE WITH

A CHERRY ON TOP

Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers

(pub. 2.4.2025)

40 pages

Ages 4 - 8

Author: Caroline Kusin Pritchard

   Illustrator: Selina Alko

Character: Library at New York Jewish Theological Seminary

Overview:

" A library is a keeper of stories. A keeper of memories. A keeper of hope. But what happens when that keeper is threatened?

When a fire broke out at New York’s Jewish Theological Seminary library in 1966, firefighters raced to the rescue. But by the end of the day, thousands of books had been turned to ashes and the ones that remained were on the brink of ruin. The community was devastated. Would the priceless stories in those waterlogged pages be lost forever? Or could helping hands from every background and corner of the neighborhood come together to become keepers of stories, too?"

Tantalizing taste:

"Hundreds of students and teachers, rabbis and pastors,

neighbors and strangers became 'Operation Booklift.'

They wound up the staircase like the flames had before,

forged together by stories...

An unbreakable one drenched book down, then the next.

For two weeks, they lifted and reached, together.

An unbreakable human chain.

Outstretched hands, keep our stories alive."

And something more: Caroline Kusin Pritchard shared in the Author's Note: "I began researching the catastrophe right as the COVID-19 pandemic was settling into every corner of our world... And yet here in these photographs from decades ago, I witnessed perfect strangers holding hands and passing books from one person to the next... They weren't just salvaging paper, of course. They were working together to fight for the very things that connect all of us: stories."