Four librarians secretly raise the baby they found one day in the children's room of the Huffington, Indiana, town libraryThe women are friends, all single and childless (though not by choice), and each is a little quirky. By the time Essie's 11, she's read a great deal about the world but experienced little. Meeting G.E., a boy who looks just like her, makes her dream of being part of a large family. The two plot: Essie's four mothers could marry the four male department store employees who are G.E.'s dads. The real outcome turns out to be slightly more complicated. The adult characters are drawn with broad, slightly stereotypical strokes: fat, white Midwesterner Doris is a terrible cook, French Jeanne-Marie is "thin and spiky" but a romantic at heart, Black Taisha has incredible skin and "a lovely froth of black hair around her head like moss," and black-haired Lucinda has "that kind of look" that makes people think of fortunetellers (likewise, Hernandez, one of G.E.'s dads, "makes great Mexican food," in contrast to the "regular stuff" prepared by one of his white dads). Horvath doesn't simplify her vocabulary or philosophical musings for her audience, tossing in, without translation, French phrases and a little Yiddish. The low-tech, late-20th-century, small-town setting offers a safe, well-staffed library: It's a lovely daydream for readers who think that E.L. Konigsburg's Claudia Kincaid had the right idea (but should have run away to a library instead of the Met).Amusing.(Fiction. 9-12)

Gr 3–6— Horvath's latest opens in a small-town public library, closed for the night. Four librarians encounter an abandoned baby in the children's department. To fulfill their individual dreams of motherhood, they decide to covertly raise the baby together in the library. As young Essie grows up, she can't imagine getting by without her four mothers. However, when she turns 11, she feels the urge to expand her horizons by venturing outside the library walls. She starts taking weekly trips to the local mall, slowly introducing herself to the real world. Then she meets G.E., an 11-year-old boy whose parental situation appears just as mysterious as hers. Does G.E. hold the key to her past? As her search for family deepens, bibliophile Essie discovers there is always more to the story. The plot has enough twists to keep readers guessing until the end. Horvath's rich descriptions of setting and quaint vocabulary draw readers in. Although Essie is naive in many ways, she is an astute observer of her surroundings. Secondary characters are (mostly) kind and supportive of Essie; tyrannical library administrator Ms. Matterhorn is an effective foil for Essie and her mothers. Most characters read white; librarian Taisha has "twilight" colored skin. VERDICT A love letter to books and the dreamers who read them. Hand this charming story to precocious readers and fans of Matilda .— Hannah Grasse