Long-overdue book finds its way back to library in Boise

In 1911, someone checked out a copy of the book“new Chronicles of Rebecca” from a library in Boise, Idaho.

For the next 110 years, the city’s libraries would survive pandemics, recessions and world wars — all without that copy of the 278-page series of stories by Kate Douglas Wiggin about an imaginative girl named Rebecca.

Then, the volume turned up in November at Boise’s main library. The circumstances of its recovery, however, remain a mystery, said Lindsey Driebergen, the interim communications manager for the Boise Public Library system.

All that’s known, she said, is that the book was returned either in late October or early November to a library in nearby Garden City. The librarians there sent the book to the main library in Boise because it still had inserts from an old library in the city that has since closed.

It was not clear who had checked out the copy, who had returned it or where it was. One theory is that the book, a sequel to a tale about a girl in Maine, could have spent the last century in an attic,“because it was really well taken care of,” Driebergen said.

Whoever had the book kept it in “immaculate” condition, she said.

“The cover was in great shape, all of the pages were crisp, nothing was missing, all the images were there,” she said.

But the library is hoping that someone with knowledge of the book’s former whereabouts might let the staff know.“we’re hoping someone comes forward and says, ‘Hey, it was my grandma’s book,’ ” Driebergen said.

“If we had a little bit of understanding as to the history of it, we’d love to hear it,” she added.