{"id":28954,"date":"2019-03-18T09:00:23","date_gmt":"2019-03-18T13:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/?p=28954"},"modified":"2019-03-18T09:00:23","modified_gmt":"2019-03-18T13:00:23","slug":"family-is-family","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/?p=28954","title":{"rendered":"Family Is Family"},"content":{"rendered":"

After 14 years in children\u2019s bookselling it sometimes feels like all the big firsts for my bookstore are probably in the past. Thankfully, that\u2019s not true.
\nMany children\u2019s booksellers offer in-store birthday parties, which can be profitable on multiple fronts: the rental fee for the space and service, as well as bringing parents and caregivers of the little guests into the store the day of the event, and creating positive word of mouth marketing after the fact.
\nTo be honest, my attempts to launch a birthday party program at Spellbound have had mixed results. I\u2019ve had slightly more success hosting baby showers in the bookstore, helped by the now years-long (and hopefully never ending) trend of parents-to-be asking that guests bring a book for the baby in lieu of a card.
\n
\nLast week Spellbound hosted its first adoption shower. This is something I have thought about promoting in the past, but this particular shower had a unique twist: the adoptee in question was a horse! A six-year-old Arabian named Comet, adopted by a member of Spellbound\u2019s longest running book club. Comet is a bit of a runt and was having trouble finding a home, but book clubber Carrie is very slight and Comet is a perfect fit for her.
\n

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Carrie and Comet.<\/p><\/div>
\nCarrie doesn\u2019t have (human) kids and doesn\u2019t plan to, but has dreamed of having her own horse since she was a small child. So the book club decided to throw a \u201cshower\u201d to celebrate the new addition to her family, complete with cupcakes and presents. Instead of books and toys and blankets and bottles, this new equine mom got a mane and tail comb, a hoof pick, a block of Himalayan salt to hang in Comet\u2019s stall, and other assorted goodies including some nifty socks featuring pictures of horses. OK, the socks were for Carrie, not the horse.
\n

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Gender-reveal cupcakes! Although Comet will not be pressured to conform to traditional gender norms.<\/p><\/div>
\nSadly, Comet wasn\u2019t able to attend his adoption shower in person \u2014 there were some slight logistical complications. Still, I know he\u2019ll enjoy all his goodies and his new family, and it was fun to have the bookstore be a part of it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Spellbound hosts a very different kind of family celebration at the bookstore.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28954","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28954","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28954"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28954\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}