Loan Stars is the readers’ advisory tool that allows library staff across Canada to collaboratively select their favourite forthcoming titles. Using CataList, the online catalogue service and order management tool available for free to libraries, library staff can endorse the Fiction, Non-Fiction, Juvenile, and Young Adult titles they want to recommend to their patrons. The titles with the most recommendations become Loan Stars picks!

But who are the authors and illustrators behind these great Loan Stars reads?

We find out in our series Meet the Loan Stars.

Meet Amelia Kahaney

Amelia Kahaney is the author of The Brokenhearted series. Her short fiction has appeared in Best American Nonrequired Reading, One Story, and Crazyhorse, among other publications. She teaches writing in New York City, where she lives with her husband and son.

Check out Amelia’s latest novel, All the Best Liars, on the March & April 2022 Loan Stars Jr. list!

Meet Amelia and learn all about her love for libraries, book recommendations, and more in her interview below.

If you could visit any library in the world, where would you go?

I wish I could visit all of them! Close to home, I've never failed to be inspired by the hushed majesty of the New York Public Library's Rose Main Reading Room. Every time I manage to get there, I'm amazed all over again that it exists.

Do you have a favourite librarian, real or fictional?

This one's easy! My mother-in-law, Agnes Sanders, was a librarian at the Sachem Public Library in Holbrook, New York, for 33 years. Retired now, she's still a librarian at heart.

Which book would you choose to recommend to library patrons?

I just finished Middlemarch. The hype really is warranted. I cried on the subway reading the final paragraphs and wished I could tell the entire train car what I'd just experienced, but instead, I'll tell whoever's reading this: Middlemarch is waiting for you.

Cover of All the Best Liars by Amelia Kahaney

What does being a Loan Stars pick mean to you?

Being selected by librarians for anything is a profound honour because librarians are the best people in the world. And Canadian librarians? Next level. It means the world to me that they liked All the Best Liars.

Thank you, Amelia! It’s an honour to have you on our list.

Are you a Loan Stars-recommended author or illustrator who wants to be featured on our blog? Get in touch with us to get started.

Until next time!