Katie’s Choice Book Club to discuss ‘The Borrower’

Staff Report

The Katie’s Choice Book Club selection for October is The Borrower by Rebecca Makkai. The Book Club is hosted by Rockford Area Lutheran Ministries and Katie’s Cup coffeebar.

The Borrower: A Novel discussion will be at Katie’s Cup at 7 p.m., Tuesday, Oct. 9. The discussion will be offered again at 10 a.m., Thursday, Oct. 11. Both meetings will be at the coffeebar, 502 Seventh St., Rockford.

The Book Club is open to all interested people, free of charge. No pre-registration is required.

Lucy is a discontented children’s librarian, restless and bored — a “would-be revolutionary stuck at a desk.”

Ian is a maladjusted 10-year-old with over-strict parents who shares the passion for books that is Lucy’s fragile bulwark against despair. Unfortunately, Ian’s mother is worried about his reading habits; the list of forbidden material includes witchcraft, weaponry, evolution, Halloween and anything by Roald Dahl or Lois Lowry.

When Lucy finds Ian hiding in the library one morning, she agrees to drive Ian to his grandmother, pretending to believe his vague directions but knowing all the while she’s helping him run away. These two misfits forge a strange and astringent relationship while on the road. The novel is filled with references, both subtle and obvious, from a shelf-load of children’s literature, offering sly echoes of everything from Charlotte’s Web to Where’s Spot?. A clever, engaging novel from a first-time author, The Borrower is sure to please.

For more about Katie’s Choice Book Club, contact Rockford Area Lutheran Ministries at either (815) 962-4279 or RALMmail@ aol.com.

From the Oct. 3-9, 2012, issue