Review: 'Lula Dean's Little Library of Banned Books'

Lula Dean's Little Library of Banned Books
By Kirsten Miller
Smalltown Fiction
William Morrow
June 2024

A busybody sees her chance to make her mark when a prank in the library galvanizes her small Georgia town. When she sets up a little free library in her front yard, Lula Dean sets in motion events that will change many lives, including her own.

The events in Lula Dean's Little Library of Banned Books, by Kirsten Miller, begin when some teens leave a book about how to make and decorate pornographic cakes in the town library. Lula Dean is one of those who cannot understand why anyone should be able to obtain a book like that in a library. Going after the books in the high school library is next. She and her committee want some books removed, and take them off the shelves.

Instead of burning them, as some request, they are stored at the house of school board president Beverly Wainwright Underwood.

In another prank, some of those books are put in Lula Dean's little free library, with the book covers of the tomes she considered more suitable -- books like Josh Hawley's one about manliness, a Chicken Soup volume and G-rated historical romances. None of that Anne Frank or Is That You, God? It's Me, Margaret propaganda.

Townsfolk gradually discover the books behind the covers. They all find exactly the book they need. Some are highly entertaining, as an elderly attorney finds a way to surprise her greedy children awaiting their inheritance. Some are entertaining with a serious undertone, like the beaten-down housewife who stands up to her Nazi-loving husband.

Some are poignant, as a younger brother finds a romance between two young men he remembers his gay brother reading. The family love in their story is moving and an outcome every child deserves.

While the cake book's discovery is the catalyst, events from decades ago have a great deal to do with Lula Dean's feelings about all this. Thanks to Beverly, her high school popularity was destroyed and a girl living in a trailer began her life as a dream come true.

How the past is prelude to this town's present is foundational to the strong story that this novel brings to life. The Wainwright in Beverly's name is for the Confederate general who was a huge trafficker of enslaved humans, and whose statue stands in the town square. She would gladly see it come down.

As people begin to change their lives based on the books they discover, the town begins to change. People filled with hate don't react well. People who have been hurt sometimes find ways to heal, and sometimes only find ways to lash out.

Miller combines both historical grievances and personal hurts as the narrative grows in power. The novel doesn't lose its droll but empathetic look at characters even as events grow larger and more serious. For example, when one family is reunited, the younger generation is welcomed back home with the prospect of homemade pie. But because the baker is not a good one, the younger generation says they are glad to return but no pie; they've been punished enough.

Lula Dean's Little Library of Banned Books is a stirring look at how books and knowledge can open up new worlds to people, and how those people then can open up their lives.