#barb hendee

A WORD FROM THE AUTHOR
A letter from Barb Hendee, author of Witches with the Enemy

Oh, Librarians … where would I be without you? 

As a child, I was one of those types who did everything humanly possible NOT to be noticed, not to be seen. While looking for places to hide at school during recess, I found a magical place filled with books and endless shelves. The kind-hearted, bespectacled woman there told me her name was Mrs. Martin.  

Somehow, I found myself speaking back to her, and I told her that I loved horses. She handed me a copy of Anna’s Sewell’s Black Beauty. The joy and wonder that followed was indescribable. I became lost in the story, sorry a few days later when I finished it. When I went back to the library, she showed me how to look up books on my own, and I left with a copy of Felix Salten’s Bambi. The book has much greater depth and social commentary than the Disney film. These stories offered me an escape into places I’d never known. Mrs. Martin was always there with a warm word or a suggestion. I’m not sure I ever recovered from the day she sent me home with Wilson Rawls’ Where the Red Fern Grows. 

My world would have been so diminished without the endless rows of books and without Mrs. Martin to guide me. 

Later, in high school, I still found myself taking refuge in the library at times. 

Our librarian there, Miss Patterson, wore no glasses. She was a tall woman with short, dark hair and a serious countenance. She was not gentle and warm like Mrs. Martin, but she loved books, and she liked other people who loved books. She introduced me to Andrea Norton … Richard Adams … Frank Herbert. Later, she handed me a copy of Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations, and I went on a Dickens binge for a month, reading everything the library had in stock.  

I came to understand the value of writers who possessed the gift of allowing others to become lost inside of stories, and I knew what I would do when I grew up: I would write the types of stories where readers would become so immersed they would forget they were reading. 

I’ve now published over twenty novels, Witches with the Enemy as the most recent. None of this would have been possible without the kindness and dedication and strength of librarians.

Love,
Barb Hendee