Handselling fun

One of the wonderful things about working in a small bookstore is noticing what sells and when. In large bookstores, I wasn't able to keep tabs on books I cared about. Now, I can see holes in displays every couple of days and celebrate.

 At my store, we love to write post-it notes. It's a way of handselling even without talking to the customer. Just today, a lady purchased Here's Looking At You by Mhairi McFarlane from our display "Books in My Beach Bag" based on the note I put with it. 

Today I asked a customer, "Are you finding what you needed?" He said he wasn't--he was there to find books to read aloud on a road trip, and the suggestions his kids had given him were not in stock. I showed him A Long Way from Chicago

and A Year Down Yonder,

both by Richard Peck. My triumph is not that the books sold, but that I know a family is going to have a great time listening and laughing together over those two treasures.

Have you met Sergio Ruzzier?

Moon, Have You Met My Mother? is a book of poems by Karla Kuskin, illustrated by Sergio Ruzzier, published in 2003.

I love it. I ran into it those many years ago while working at the Eastgate Borders store in Cincinnati, Ohio. No fanfare accompanied its release--the single copy was quietly shelved in the poetry section and as far as I know, never featured or noticed by anyone but me. I, however, snapped it up immediately. Ruzzier has done many colorful picture books, but I always think of him in black and white, since the Kuskin book is. Click Here for a link to his website--enjoy!

Zany

In honor of Joy R.'s birthday this week, I'd like to highlight Yucka Drucka Droni

by Eugenia and Vladimir Radunsky, published 1998. As a kids clerk at Borders, I hadn't run into it; Joy found it at the library for her toddler son. She thought it was blast, but without her introduction I would have written it off as merely odd. It's a rollicking trip that says, "You think you know from zany? I'll show you from zany!" How many fun things the world might miss out on, except that they are pre-approved by a friend. The bandwagon can be a tool for good.

Yay! Collage!

Last night I read a great new book from Lois Ehlert, published in March 2014, The Scraps Book: Notes from a Colorful Life. I love the bright colors and crisp-edged shapes in Ehlert's artwork. When the collages are reproduced as a book, their 3-dimensionality is made less obvious, so seeing the artwork in early stages reveals texture and volume present in the originals.

Finding the new book at the Kenton County Public Library, I discovered it is not Ehlert's first memoir. Right next to it on the shelf was Under My Nose, published in 1996.

From the cover, Under My Nose looks like your typical meet-the-author children's biography so numerous in school and public libraries. In it Ehlert shares just a few sentences about her life and then describes how she develops ideas into books. Scraps is really an extended, more artwork-filled version of Under My Nose. Since it's being published as a trade book rather than for the institutional market, it will likely catch more attention this time around, so I'm glad to see the revamp.

A 4th of July Parade made for me!

I drove to Hamilton, Ohio on the 4th of July to attend Hamilton's parade with my mother, sister, et alia. The main attraction for us was 95-year-old Uncle Gordon, who was riding among the WW2 Veterans. To my delight, the theme of the parade was "Celebrating Hamilton's History/Robert McCloskey Centennial". Floats depicted the native son's picture books, with ducklings being especially prevalent. I was especially gratified when a mock doughnut machine went by! After the parade, we attended the program on Courthouse Square, which included a talk by Nancy Folmer about McCloskey's life. There was also a harmonica solo in his honor. Here's a link to news coverage of the parade by the Journal-News. Now I just need to get my hands on a Lentil T-shirt!

My own Shelf Discovery

Thinking about the old books in my last 2 posts has made me remember Lizzie Skurnick's great book about remembering the books you read in childhood/teenhood.

After reading it, I made a list of all the books I remember reading from age 0 to 14. That was fun! Make a mental note to put that list on the blog.

Fondly Remembered

I'd like to track down Finders Weepers by Miriam Chaikin, which I read at age 9 or 10. The only cover image I can find on the world wide web isn't quite satisfactory. The illustration by Richard Egielski is fine, but only part of it was used on this reprint cover.

Finders Weepers is a sequel to I Should Worry, I Should Care, but I never read the first. Maybe my copy came from a box of books ordered through a Troll flyer at school. It was a surprise assortment, where you knew only how many items there would be, but not the titles. It must have been a way for them to get rid of overstock. The element of surprise was genius. I was very happy with my assortment.