Books about Alia Muhammad Baker

Stamaty, Mark Alan.  Alia's Mission: Saving the Books of Iraq (Dragonfly Books, 2010).

The inspiring story of an Iraqi librarian's courageous fight to save books from the Basra Central Library before it was destroyed in the war.  It is 2003 and Alia Muhammad Baker, the chief librarian of the Central Library in Basra, Iraq, has grown worried given the increased likelihood of war in her country. Determined to preserve the irreplacable records of the culture and history of the land on which she lives from the destruction of the war, Alia undertakes a courageous and extremely dangerous task of spiriting away 30,000 books from the library to a safe place.

Told in dramatic graphic-novel panels by acclaimed cartoonist Mark Alan Stamaty, Alia's Missioncelebrates the importance of books and the freedom to read, while examining the impact of war on a country and its people.

Winter, Jeanette.  The Librarian of Basra: A True Story from Iraq (Harcourt Children's Books, 2005).

Alia Muhammad Baker is the librarian of Basra. For fourteen years, her office has been a meeting place for those who love books--until now. Now war has come, and Alia fears the library will be destroyed. She asks government officials for help, but they refuse. So Alia takes matters into her own hands, working secretly with friends to move the thirty-thousand new and ancient books from the library and hide them in their homes. There, the books are stacked in windows and cupboards and even in an old refrigerator. But they are safe until the war moves on--safe with the librarian of Basra.

This moving true story about a real librarian's brave struggle to save her war-stricken community's priceless collection of books is a powerful reminder that the love of literature and the passion for knowledge know no boundaries.