A timely story told in a comic-book picture format

"Alia's Mission" is a newly-popularized type of book format. It's a short novel presented in pictures with talk balloons for the characters' dialogue. Book publishers are calling these publications "graphic novels", because of their use of pictures to tell the story.

In the case of "Alia's Mission", Alia is Alia Muhammad Baker, a librarian in Basra, Iraq. In 2003, as The United States was getting closer to invading Iraq, Alia started worrying about what would happen to the books in the library in case of war. She had loved books and reading since she was a little girl. She knew that in wars of the past, priceless books and documents had been destroyed.

Alia went to government officials to get permission to put the books in a safe place. Not only was she denied that permission, but the military placed anti-aircraft weapons on the very roof of the library. The army even turned the library into a command post for its soldiers. Once the war started, it looked like there was no chance to save the books.

Alia was so desperate that she started sneaking books out of the library past the soldiers. She hid them in her own home. Each day she slipped more and more books out to her little car and took them home to hide them away. But as the war draws closer to the building and bombs became more threatening, she knew that she couldn't save all the books by herself.

Finally, looters break into the library and steal furniture, lights, fixtures, even the pencil sharpeners. Strangely, they leave the books alone. Now, Alia knows she must get assistance in protecting the books. With the help of workers from around the city, she is able to get many of the books moved to a neighboring restaurant, where they are less likely to be destroyed by fire and bombing. The library is burned before all of the books can be salvaged.

Alia is so concerned that she has a stroke and has to go to bed for several weeks to recover. While getting better, she learns that over 30,000 books have been saved, or almost all of the library collection. Alia is overjoyed, and finds that she has become a national hero.