Miss Morgan’s Book Brigade

In 1918, Jessie Carson takes leave from her job at the New York Public Library to join the American Committee for Devastated France (CARD), which is rebuilding French villages just miles from the front lines. Jessie’s job is to rebuild a village library. Under almost impossible conditions, she accomplishes this and much more, revolutionizing libraries and women’s lives in France. In a parallel plot set in 1987, budding writer Wendy Peterson stumbles across a reference to Jessie in the NYPL’s archives. Determined to use Jessie’s story as the basis for her novel, Wendy scours the archives until she finds information that leads her to a surviving CARD member. Charles (The Paris Library) bases her story on the history of the brave American women who brought hope and help to the people of France in a time of crisis and loss. The team of narrators, including Marin Ireland, Sarah Gadon, Jackie Sanders, and Cassandra Campbell, evokes the WWI setting and provides excellent voices and accents for the international cast of characters.