I’m a librarian, and I frequently recommend Jackaby to patrons (and staff). It’s categorized as a Young Adult (YA) title, but I recommend it to people from about 13 years old on up to adulthood. A colleague asked me to post a review so that people can see why I like it and why it’s a worthwhile read. I thought that was a good idea and sounded like fun, so I jotted down this review about the first book in the Jackaby series. It’s ironic, though, because I’m actually not posting it in a place where my co-workers and patrons can find it. I thought I would share it with the world on Medium instead.
Jackaby is a book about a seventeen-year-old British woman, Abigail, who travels alone to America to start a new, independent life in the late 1800s. She desperately needs a job and sees Jackaby’s help-wanted posting, so she goes to his address as instructed and immediately has second thoughts. There are a few entertaining reasons for that, but I’ll leave that for you to read. Even though the book is titled Jackaby, Abigail is the narrator and a strong female main character. As you read through the series, you feel like the books are really Abigail’s story, so it’s fitting that the last book has her last name as the title: Rook.
