Maya and the Book of Everything

I’ve been waiting impatiently for Laurie Graves’ third book in the The Great Library series.

Book 1 was Maya and the Book of Everything, book 2 was Library Lost.

Out of Time is due this November.

The first two books and their main character Maya are enthralling. There are big themes in this series, but the main story is about a teenager who, with the help of a magical book, faces adversaries from a different time and a different realm. With the guidance of the Book of Everything, Maya travels between present and past just in time to prevent certain events from happening.

Having lived in fascinating old houses for most of my life, I have often stood in a room, wondering what it would be like to be able to revisit the house in an earlier century. And yes, I have wondered what it was like to be an adolescent or teenager during those times. Through Marie Prins’ The Girl from the Attic, I was able to do a bit of time travel myself.

The Girl from the Attic tells the story of Maddy, a feisty young girl who, with the help of a mysterious cat, finds a door to the past. She finds herself in a time when bath soap is made the old way (with dangerous lye), there are no antibiotics, and people still die from diseases such as tuberculosis. Maddy makes desperate attempts to prevent certain events from unfolding.

Kudos to Marie Prins for skillfully creating the two worlds of past and present — both taking place in the same home. In Maddy and her friend Clare, the author presents us with two likable, believable characters facing realistic challenges of their times.

Marie says there are similarities between the book and her own life:

“I too have American roots and now live in a historic, octagonal house that once was a farm house. I was intrigued/inspired by the idea of a portal that would allow someone to discover who lived here and what life may have been like a century ago.

“A bit of research gave me many ideas for the 1901 part of my story (there really was a soap factory across the street). In the 2001 part of the story, my protagonist reflects some of my own feelings of displacement when I moved here.“

But getting the book written and published was no easy feat. Inspired by an assignment in a workshop led by Canadian author Ted Staunton, Marie worked at it over ten years.

“It was rejected by many Canadian publishers, but then in 2019 it won silver in Common Deer Press’s Uncommon Quest competition. Of course, there were more revisions to do after I signed the contract, but I had a great editor who helped me make the novel a better book.”

Marie calls working with Common Deer “a happy collaboration”. Among other things, publisher Kirsten Marion was open to artist Edward Hagedorn doing the illustrations. Edward is Marie’s husband.

Congrats, Marie and Edward!

Congrats, Laurie Graves!

You know when you’re reading a book – even a mostly interesting book — but you reach a paragraph or page that’s over-written, over-described, over-dense, confusing or just plain boring?

Yes?

Me too.

So I can’t praise highly enough the novel that I finished reading last week. “Maya and the Book of Everything” kept me glued to its pages right to the end.

Blog Photo - Maya and the book of everything

This shouldn’t be. There are many different characters, the book skips from one time and place to another and takes fantastical twists. And yet, the storytelling is seamless, the characters compelling, the dialogue convincing, the quest believably and skilfully portrayed. It was a pure pleasure to read this book.

What makes me even more pleased? This book about a teenaged girl who takes on a seemingly impossible mission is from a small press, and authored by Laurie Graves, a blogger you may know.

With this book, Laurie demonstrates formidable gifts and skill as a novelist.

“How did you make the characters so believable?” I asked Laurie.

“I originally envisioned Maya as more timid, but when I thought of all she’d have to face, I knew she couldn’t have a timid character. Maya wouldn’t have survived her adventures. So then I reimagined her as a fiery young woman, a girl of action—unlike me!—and I immediately knew this was the right way to think about Maya.

“Somehow the characters just came, and it wasn’t all that hard to keep track of them. For me each character has a vivid voice and a distinctive way of speaking.”

Blog Photo - Laurie Graves MCU

Where did the idea for the book originate? I asked.

Laurie got the idea for the book while editing a small literary magazine that she and her husband published.

“I used the Chicago Manual Style, not always an easy book to use. One day, I was tackling a knotty grammatical problem, and I said to myself, ‘I wish I had a book of everything.’ Then came the question: What if there were a book of everything? Where would it come from? What would it do? What kind of danger would it be in? Obviously, many people would covet a true book of everything. From this question came Maya and the rest of the story.”

Blog Photo - Laurie reading VasselboroMaya170604

Laurie is Franco-American. Her ancestors came to Maine from Canada. It was important to her that Maya and several other characters share that background.

“It is the place from which Maya springs, and her heritage, along with place, is one of the things that ground her.”

There is a real place in both Maya’s and Laurie’s stories.

“The street shot (below) is of East Vassalboro, a classic New England village where my mother lived for many, many years and one I came to cherish. It is also where Maya’s grandparents live, and East Vassalboro and its library are essential to the story.”

Blog Photo - Laurie Vasselboro main street

There are subtle but impactful messages woven through this book. Good leadership is one.

“The big messages are that facts do matter and that a place will suffer under a bad leader. The corollary is that good leaders are essential. On a more personal level, I wanted young girls to read about a plucky heroine who turned her face to the wind and faced difficult challenges.”

It’s a great read.

Look out for Book 2: Library Lost, coming next fall.