“The Library After Dark is a love letter to libraries and books, to those who place knowledge into the hands of any who may not experience it otherwise.”

“I hope they know how grateful we readers and writers are for the work they do. I spent my childhood immersed in books, many of which were recommended to me by my school librarian or borrowed from libraries, and I hope that all children can be lucky as I was.”

I could not have written this novel without libraries and the incredible work of librarians like you.

“There are only three things in my life that have never changed: my love of the library, my love of reading, and my dream to someday be an author. . . As a librarian, I felt an intrinsic appreciation for every book that crossed my desk, and I feel honored to share mine now with this wonderful community.”

“Sometime in 1986, after completing a lengthy, emotionally exhausting novel titled You Must Remember This, the idea came to me in a flash, with a promise of adventure: writing a sequence of short, cinematic novels exploring twins, doubles, soul-mates and secret selves under a pseudonym!”

“As a library, you are the guardian and spirit-home of something absolutely precious: HUMAN ATTENTION.”

“It is librarians like you who work tirelessly to share books with a world that needs hope. Thank you for your efforts!”

“Sylvie, the main character, is formed even more deeply than she realizes by the ideas she learned from her grandparents, both of whom died when she was 13. You might even say those ideas save her. I was lucky, growing up, to have a host of adults expose me to real ideas, but I think my librarians did it most. In that way, too, they made me who I am.”

“That sweltering, pouring jungle was a far cry from my other formative literary experience in the cozy children’s section of the Santa Monica Public Library. There, the hardest decision wasn’t who I had to vote off the island, but how I could possibly check out only two books at a time.”

“Most of the major eras of my life are defined, some way or other, by a library.”

Hear how author Kobi Yamada’s upcoming book OTHERS, illustrated by Charles Santoso (on sale 3/31/26) will encourage curiosity and conversation, and inspire a love of learning about others. Plus, discover more exciting kids’ books in this thought-provoking panel from SLJ Day of Dialog.

As I prepare now to release Black-Owned, my greatest hope is that readers will find in these stories that same sense of community. My hope is we will gain a deeper understanding of just how much we need one another. Prison abolitionist and organizer Mariame Kaba often says, “Everything worthwhile is done with other people.”