Goodnight, June

Jio, Sarah. Goodnight, June. New York: Plume, 2014.

What a fun read! June Anderson is a New York banker specializing in foreclosures. Her work has created life-threatening stress for her which she refuses to acknowledge. Suddenly she inherits her aunt's bookstore for children back in Seattle. June plans to take a week off and close it down just as she has closed down so many businesses over the years, but the bookstore still holds power over here. She meets a restauranteur in the adjacent space. The two of them hit it off well. There's a lot of resolution of family matters. The big thread in the novel is the friendship between her aunt and Margaret Wise Brown, author of Goodnight Moon and other children's stories. The letters June finds among her aunt's books point to her aunt's influence in the creation of the much beloved children's book. Ironically, June discovers that the bookstore is in financial trouble and finds herself on the opposite end of her banking role. Can she save the bookstore? I loved this book. You can tell that the author loves children's literature and literature itself. It may not be the most plausible story. There are more famous names dropped than could possibly actually occur, but even in spite of that, I loved the book. It's a fun and creative fictional look at what might have been the inspiration of a classic. This review is based on an e-galley received from the publisher through NetGalley for review purposes.