I love summer; it’s a great time to be a bookseller in a small town. Kids as young as seven ride their bikes to the store from their houses in the village. No one ever uses the bike rack, they just drop their bikes on the lawn and hang their helmets on the handle bars of bikes and bustle into the store.
There is freedom in coming to the store alone. Kids can browse without parental hindrance or guidance. The only thing that needs to happen is the kids need to have money. Now, money to grown-ups often comes out of a wallet or perhaps a pocket. With kids, it’s a little different.
Kid money sometimes comes out of a wallet. Oddly these days that wallet is made out of duct tape. I don’t really understand how the dollars just don’t ripped or stuck, but they don’t seem to. Did you know duct tape comes in a variety of colors that extend far beyond silver and black? I’ve seen red, blue and even purple.
Kid money, though, mostly comes in the forms of balls. Balls of dollar bills wrapped tightly around a core of coins. These balls appear from the depths of backpacks or are held, clutched in small hands until the first layer of dollars is just a little damp. In all the anxiety of picking the right book, sometimes these money balls get squeezed, almost like a hand exerciser. Ringing up a ball of money takes a long time. What seems like a lot of money usually turns out to be not quite enough. First you have to peel the ball apart carefully so as not to rip the bills. Then you lay them out flat and then you count the coins. I once had a kid who had ten dollars in quarters wrapped by twelve singles — pretty impressive. I really wanted to iron the bills; they were so wrinkled, they would not lie flat in the cash register drawer.
My favorite kid with money is the really little kid. The one who is still learning what the coins mean, the one who comes in with Mom and Dad. These kids have bags of change, or in several cases, they just bring their piggy bank right into the store. It always breaks my heart a little to see a kid shaking that last dime out of Miss Bianca (as one girl named her bank) to see if she had enough money to get her early reader. And what kills me is they never factor in tax. Ever. So now you’ve spent ten minutes watching some little person struggle to organize and count out the coins. Sometimes they start over several times to get the counting out rhythm right. I let them do it all rather than leap in. It’s cute to watch, and how else are they going to learn? They count and then they come up short. They ask again what the total is, $5.25 I tell them. They have $4.83.
At this point, little lips start quavering. This is the one time I get to be a magician. We always have a stash of change for just these occasions. For some reason there are lots of adults who no longer want their change and they basically donate it back to the store, so we use for the kids. With a flourish, I add the missing forty two cents. Smiles abound.
I like being the place where children can count out their grubby money and not feel rushed. It’s oddly cozy for me to watch and listen as little kids count out coins and bills. And what really thrills me is these kids are saving their allowance for books. Imagine, saving money to buy books! The best part about this is the kids usually hug their book on the way out of the store.
Oh, and what’s really interesting is, kids always want a bag.
The story hour was loads of fun and it culminated in a very cute craft activity, lead by Elizabeth, but organized by Titcomb’s Story Hour Queen, Edye, who had all the crafts ready to go — the sign of a real children’s bookseller is always having red fabric balls and glue on hand to make dog noses. All the participants had a grand time.
while I explored all the loveliness that is 
Titcomb’s. The store carries a mix of old and new books. The old books all seemed like treasures and I found myself having just walk away before I spent all my money. I was smitten with the sidelines area. It was full of interesting, fun and educational toys, puzzles and games that I hadn’t seen yet.
Since we’re on vacation, a little light entertainment is in order. We’ve been watching book trailers lately, trying to determine the best way to use them at our store and with customers. Embeddable videos can be placed on bookstore websites and in email blasts and on Facebook, links can be included in e-newsletters and in Twitter. I can even imagine turning to a great book trailer to intrigue a browsing teen if a book talk isn’t doing the trick.
spent the day luxuriating with my friends in our rented house on Commercial Street, the busiest street in town. Some of you might wonder why on earth I’m blogging from vacation (PW is making me). I am wondering the same thing, frankly, but Ptown, as the locals refer to it, has a rich literary history, although not one steeped in children’s literature.
th of their children’s stock. Ptown, long a gay and lesbian mecca, is not a town people think of when they think about kids’ books, but the Provincetown Book Shop knows that many tourists, most of them straight day-trippers, have kids, and those kids need something to read when the drag queens cease to be a curiosity anymore, which these days takes about five minutes.
g Pig. Since the owner passed away several years ago, she’s buying the kids’ books, and she’s doing a damned good job. The store is tiny, no more than 500 square feet, and the kids’ section takes up just under a quarter I always measure a kids’ store by the classics it stocks. Do they have Virginia Lee Burton? H.A. Rey’s Find the Constellations, D’Aulaire’s Book of Greek Myths, The Red Balloon? Do they have the modern classics like The Book Thief and Twilight? Yes and yes for this little store. They also have an entire spinner rack of Dover coloring books right next to the lesbian fiction section. I love this store.
I mean “adult” overstock, with such diverse titles as Secrets of a Gay Marine Porn Star, (also a bestseller) and Code of Conduct. In any other place, these titles might not mingle so freely. But this is Provincetown, and nothing is taboo and it’s all good, More power to Jane, an astute buyer who knows her customers so well, she knows what they’ll need to read and she knows her largest market share right now are teenage girls who have all read Twilight and come in looking for something new. And she’s got it, right there next to the Cape Cod history books. Really, if you’re in Provincetown, stop by and see what marvels can occur in five hundred square feet with someone who is a shelving savant. A store this good kind of makes me want a rainy day.
Some bookstores are so legendary, everyone assumes you’ve been there. Or know the owners. "Well, of course you’ve met [famous bookstore owner] Alexandra Pastafagioli," people will purr at BEA, when you’ve never even so much as glimpsed a lock of Alexandra’s golden hair. Or they’ll exclaim, shocked, spraying crumbs from their convention-kiosk cookies, "You mean you’ve never been to Old Possum’s BookPlace?" And you shake your head sheepishly no, because what they’re really saying is, "You call yourself a book lover and you’ve never visited heaven on earth?"
But last week — oh, last week I died and went to bookstore-lover Nirvana. I had a meeting in San José, and not only got to spend time with Valerie (left) and Monica (right), but got the in-person, super-special, fantastic tour of their completely enchanting, unbelievably inspiring store. (I know I just got docked for over-adjectival activity, but that’s what a bookstore crush can do to a person.) I only had my less-than-perfect phone camera with me, so I hope these pictures capture at least a little of the magic.
Hicklebee’s sits nestled on a block of several other inviting businesses in an appealing community in San Jose called Willow Glen. Outside the store is a book cart with a rotating selection of sale titles. Giant red animal tracks on the sidewalk outside (Clifford’s, if you must know) lead customers to the front door. The tracks are part of Hicklebee’s summer reading program, which changes annually; this year’s has a safari theme. (Watch for a separate post on this program next week.) The windows are also eye-catchingly decorated—with enviable skill—in "safari." (Photo at right shows a cardboard zebra-striped painted Jeep, a bevy of animals, and safari-related books.)
You can sense, just walking through the door, the boomerang effect of book love Hicklebee’s has engendered in the community over the past thirty years. Inside, every inch of the place—from the floors to the 22′ ceiling (!) to the insides and outsides of the bathroom doors—is lovingly decorated with art created by staff members, children’s-book authors and illustrators, and customers. It’s a living treasure trove celebrating children’s literature, a grand cave of wonders, an ever-changing embodiment of Valerie and Monica’s passion for the world’s best books for young people. (Above left, the Hicklebee’s elf in stained glass.)
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