But everything I do is really just what I’ve always done, only greatly expanded: put people together with good books to read.īS: Which books from your childhood would you say made the greatest impact on you? That is, I never woke up one morning and said to myself “I want to be on Morning Edition” – my appearing on it grew out of the fact that for a number of years I reviewed books on the public radio station in Tulsa, OK, and then, when I moved to Seattle in 1993, I started appearing regularly on KUOW, the public radio station here. That is, I never set out to be anything but a children’s librarian, but fate and good fortune intervened at various points and expanded my life. NP: It sometimes seems to me that my life has evolved almost by chance. How do you think you garnered this celebrity-like status among the bookish crowd? I thought that if I wanted to make the world a better place (I was that kind of child), there was nothing better I could do than become a children’s librarian.īS: You are now a regular commentator about books on NPR’s “Morning Edition” and a Librarian Action Figure has been modeled in your likeness. I learned that through reading I could be anyone, do anything, and go anywhere.

The three of them (and particularly Miss Frances Whitehead, at the public library) took a very unhappy child and opened it up through the books they gave me to read. Nancy Pearl: First, I became a librarian because when I was a child the most important people in my life were the two children’s librarians at my local public library (the Parkman Branch Library in Detroit, Michigan) and the librarian at my elementary school (Hally, also in Detroit). We’re so honored to have spoken with Wonder Woman herself and we are delighted to share her excellent book suggestions.īianca Schulze: Why did you choose to be a librarian? In 2004, Pearl became the 50th winner of the Women’s National Book Association Award for her extraordinary contribution to the world of books and she has a monthly television program Book Lust with Nancy Pearl on the Seattle Channel.

You can often hear this heroine fighting to get the right books into the right hands, on National Public Radio’s (NPR) “Morning Edition.” The proof of her success is in her bestselling book Book Lust: Recommended Reading for Every Mood, Moment, and Reason and is visible by her standing-room-only bookstore and library events.

She has been gifted with a wide range of superhuman powers including, but not limited to, a natural ability to book talk. Nancy Pearl has worked as both a librarian and a bookseller and is the librarian equivalent of Wonder Woman. By Bianca Schulze, The Children’s Book Review

Red Planet by Robert A. Heinlein