The Librarian of Basra by Jeanette Winter (2005)

While looking to see what we had in our children's collection on Iraq, I found two books about a librarian. This first one was a simple children's picture book that tells the true tale of Alia Mohammed Baker, who was the chief librarian at Basra Central Library. In 2003, when she saw the war coming, she asked government officials for help to protect the library collection, but when she was refused support, took it upon herself to move as many books as she could to her home and when the fighting began, to a restaurant next door to the library from which the books were dispersed to homes of friends. The library was destroyed, but she had saved 70% of the collection.