Alex Is Reading...SWIM THAT ROCK

Swim That Rock is a classic. I mean, it's a new book, but it's put together like a classic--our main character has lost his father, and he and his mother are close to losing their diner. In a small Rhode Island town, the solution for being trapped in grief and strapped for cash may be one and the same: the biggest opportunity to pull quahogs that anyone's seen for decades. It's satisfyingly filled to the brim, like a quahogger's bullrake, with perseverance, personal strength, and tantalizing details of the fisherman's trade--with a side of mobsters and pirates.

There's really nothing quite like a book on the water--here are some more that might catch you in their wake.

My Heart Is On the Water

Kids' Books for the Roving Reader

Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome -- 1939 classic in every sense, about kids who actually get to sail off from their parents and have adventures on islands.

The Turtle of Oman by Naomi Shihab Nye -- Aref is devastated to leave his home in Oman for Michigan, but like a sea turtle, he will find his way home no matter where he travels.

Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell -- Stranded on her island when the rest of her tribe leaves for better grounds, Karana survives the elements of the Pacific alone. We have this in the UBC.

The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle by Avi -- It's 1832, and Charlotte Doyle is returning to Rhode Island from England. Her voyage goes awry, and she is trapped aboard a mutinying ship with a cruel captain at the helm. Worse yet, she's soon on trial for murder.

Over Sea, Under Stone by Susan Cooper -- A holiday on the coast of Cornwall takes a menacing and mythological turn--as they may be one step ahead of some much more frightening people in finding the Holy Grail.

Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson -- You know the story, but trust me, it is well worth the time to go back to the original swashbuckler.

Heart of a Samurai by Margi Preus --In 1841, Manjiro is trapped on a deserted island and unable to return home through Japan's closed borders. So instead, he travels the world, breaking all expectations as he goes.

YA Books:

The Scorpio Races by Maggie Steifvater -- Man-eating horses rise from the waters, trapped and raced once a year by the ambitious and the fearful. Sean is a champion racer. Puck never meant to race at all. But now that she is racing--the first girl ever--she can't hesitate for a moment.

Midwinterblood by Marcus Sedgwick -- This journey will take you through time and through lifetimes, over water and across the strange, treacherous territory of Blessed Island, whose blessing is bloody, and whose story never moves in a straight line.

Tides by Betsy Cornwell -- Selkies, and the girl who finds them. Different, eerie, and romantic. You can order this book through us.

I also, on the YA side, highly recommend Monstrous Affections, edited by Kelly Link and Gavin Grant,  which includes some snippets of the high, and extremely monstrous, seas.

For the ambitious, also please see Master and Commander by Patrick O'Brian and the twenty-some books that follow it. Seaborne adventuring through storm, battle, and more, with exquisite detail and wonderful characters. You can usually find some in the UBC, or order them from our website.

Happy reading!

Shut up and listen, and other bookselling tips from an almost-alum

Friends, you have no idea how much fun I've had blathering at you about kids' books every other week. But two weeks from now, I'll be settling into a new job at The Horn Book. Only a venue for even more blathering about kids' books would get me to leave the Booksmith, where I've learned so much and gotten to know so many people worth knowing. In my parting post, I thought I'd share some advice for current and future booksellers.

Shut up and listen. When I started, I thought "being helpful" meant "letting information pour from my mouth as fast as possible." Sorry, customers who encountered me in my first few months. If I had paused when you said, "I'm looking for a gift for an eight-year-old," you would probably have told me more, whether it was "she loves funny books" or "I don't really know him, but I remember loving poetry around that age, so maybe that would work." We would've arrived at a better gift, and probably faster.

Be ready to switch gears. You might find yourself discussing The Hunger Games and Moo, Baa, La La La! in the same breath. You also might find your day going from sleepy to crazy in the time it takes the door to swing open and the phone to ring (simultaneously, of course).

Language barriers aren't immovable. Most people will get the gist of, and appreciate, a friendly "Finding everything okay?" And here, at least, books are physical objects that you can show people. One thing I've noticed, very anecdotally: "How many years?" makes more sense than "How old is (s)he?" to speakers of a lot of languages.

When in doubt, handsell like Clarissa. This involves jumping up and down, hugging the book, and declaring, "GAAAAH! THIS BOOK IS SO GOOD! SO GOOOOOOOOD!" It works.

Or literally handsell, like Amy. This involves getting a tattoo on your forearm of a quote from the book you'd like to recommend.  (In Amy's case, the book is Where Things Come Back, by John Corey Whaley.) 

Twitter likes puns. The store's social media platform is a great place to mistweet the English language.


Know whom to ask.  You're probably surrounded by experts in every niche of the book industry. Getting to know people's tastes, including but not limited to the sections they run, gives you access to a wealth of information.

Know how to figure it out for yourself. That perfect person to ask won't always be available. Pay attention to what you're ringing up a lot. Pay attention at rep nights. Pay attention to back room conversations. Try to know what the bestsellers are, and know that everything can be Googled, including "If you liked [bestselling title]."

Do not get emotionally involved with the eight-by-eight spinner.  Pouring your heart and soul into the organization of the Barbie, Thomas, Spiderman, Spongebob, Caillou, Clifford, Dora, Disney, Pixar, Batman, Superman, Power Rangers, and Scooby-Doo books will only result in heartbreak.

Wear comfortable clothes on Tuesdays, especially in fall and spring.  There will be new releases. You may find yourself building cardboard displays, destroying old ones, and bringing huge quantities of overstock up and down ladders.

If you attend a store event, hang out until the end of the signing line. A bunch of us got to chat with Rainbow Rowell and David Levithan. We're totes besties now. No biggie.

Don't let fall stress you out. People may be a little on edge as they prepare for The Holiday Season. You may find yourself thinking, "If we're stressed now, what will The Actual Season be like?" But once The Season starts (November), bookselling gets a lot more fun. Oh, it's busy and exhausting. But for the most part, everyone's in a sugar-fueled good mood as they push their favorite books out the door. And if you're lucky, you might even have a boss who hires a masseuse for her aching employees!

Try to eat something besides sugar in November and December.

When award season nears, don't shrink-wrap anything eligible for a Caldecott. If it wins, you'll want to put it up on display, and customers will want to check inside to see if you have a first printing.

Pay attention to the larger book community. You might just get clued into something like the #WeNeedDiverseBooks movement or its bookselling-specific baby, the Great Greene Challenge. 

Pay attention to your own community. Local schools play a major role in our kids' section, particularly when summer reading lists come out. If you suddenly get two or three requests for a title that's not normally a bestseller, ask if there's a school reading it or discussing it or putting on a play about it. If there is, get more copies as fast as you can.

Shop local. Dude, you get a discount. 

Always offer help, unless it's July and the customer is searching for Waldo.

Get to know your coworkers. They are awesome.

Stay in touch with departing coworkers. This is more a request than a tip.

Thank you, Booksmith, and thank you, Brookline.

Which kids' or YA bestseller describes your life???

Social media is a hot topic around the store these days, so I thought I'd blatantly steal a format I've seen succeed all over Facebook. Is there anything you'd like to see on our social media? Let us know! Now, on to important matters....

Which setting sounds most appealing?
A. a snowy mountain
B. the popular kids' table
C. an American city whose neighborhoods have their own personalities
D. a European city full of art and tortured artists

Something is bothering you. What do you do?
A. run and hide until you just have to let your feelings out
B. write about it in your diary
C. confront it. Bravery is your defining quality! Your only one! Really!
D. get as much as you can out of today anyway

 What do you like to do with your friends?
A. build a snowman
B. talk about your crushes
C. jump off moving trains
D. track down your favorite authors

Where are you most likely to be found on a Saturday night?
A. Frost Ice Bar. The cold never bothered you anyway.
B. at a party... and then home telling your diary what a disaster it was
C. showing off your bravery and hiding your other traits
D. rereading your favorite book and agonizing over its ending 

Mostly A's: Your life is like Frozen: The Big Golden Book. Congratulations on being yourself, even if it means dancing in the snow in July! 

Mostly B's: Your life is like the Dork Diaries books. Congratulations on being yourself, even if it means you're a dork!

Mostly C's: Your life is like Divergent: Congratulations on being yourself, even if you have to be dauntless to do so!

Mostly D's: Your life is like The Fault in Our Stars (purely in terms of personality, I hope). Congratulations on being loveable enough to make an entire generation cry. 

Ocean's Eleven Meets High School Musical. (In middle school.)

What would you do if your student council election was rigged?

Let me rephrase that: what would you do if your student council election were rigged in favor of someone really spoiled, and you kinda sorta maybe wanted to be more than friends with the person who really deserved to win, and you were Jackson Greene, master caper-puller-offer?

You'd pull off a caper, that's what you'd do.

This book has a great ensemble cast. It's well-plotted. It's funny. And it has fallen into the hands of the #WeNeedDiverseBooks movement, which has set out to prove that a book with a diverse cast on the cover can sell and that it is in the industry's interest to publish more such books.

We're competing with lots of other independent bookstores in The Great Greene Challenge. Do I especially care if we end up being the store that sells the most copies in the first month? Nah. Do I think it's awesome that we're all motivating each other to help make the book a bestseller? Heck yes.

Know a reader somewhere around middle school age? Have we got a book for you!

Summers Are For Bucket Lists

Three exciting books!

1. Dangerous Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl
The beginning of the Beautiful Creatures spin-off series. This time we get to follow Ridley.

2. I am Cow, Hear me Moo by Jill Esbaum, illustrated by Gus Gordon
I was shrink-wrapping when I found this book. I read segments of it out loud and laughed, loudly. It's clever and delightful and it rhymes.

3.Odin's Ravens by Kelley Armstrong and Melissa Marr
I'm excited to see who else Matt, Fen, and Laurie find, who else they have to stand against, and just how close Ragnarok really is.


As summer approaches we all  (theoretically) have more free-time. Or at least, we all think more about the free time we do have. More things seem possible. Maybe not having ice and snow to trek through or coats and gloves to lug around makes the idea of going on an adventure more desirable. Whatever the reason, the feeling is there.

My work schedule won't change but I've been gearing up to go out and do more things and thinking about all of the things that I want to do. So, here, on this blog, I'm going to come up with my children's book inspired bucket list. These can't all be done this summer but maybe someday.

And off we go!

1. Take an Anna and the French Kiss (Stephanie Perkins) tour of Paris.

2. Go on a spontaneous, heavily budgeted, backpack tour of Europe. (Thirteen Little Blue Envelopes, Maureen Johnson)

3. Find a moose and name it Marcel. (This Moose Belongs to Me, Oliver Jeffers)

4. Find and go to a paper town. (Paper Towns, John Green)

5. Jump on and off of a moving train. (Divergent, Veronica Roth) (Note: Not over a gap in buildings, I would die)

6. Climb a tall tree and sketch the landscape. (Page, Tamora Pierce) (Note: I, like Kel, am afraid of heights)

7. Learn to shoot a bow. (The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins)

8. Find Glendower (or, at the very least, waken a ley line) (The Raven Boys, Maggie Stiefvater)

9. Draw a picture that makes all of the crayons happy. (The Day the Crayon's Quit, Drew Daywalt)

10. Live in an art museum (for a couple of days). (From the Mixed-up files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, E.L. Konigsburg)

11. Be the baddest witch in the whole world in a Halloween parade. (Ramona the Pest, Beverly Cleary)

12. Put a doll to rest with it's original owner (preferably in a way involving a boat and a bus). (Doll Bones, Holly Black)

13. Press here. (Press Here, Herve Tullet)

14. Find a pet friend brontosaurus. (Lulu and the Brontosaurus, Judith Viorst)

15. Exeunt on a leopard. (The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of her Own Making, Catherine M. Valente)

I think I can knock a couple of these out this summer.

What's on your book inspired bucket list?

-Amy

#WeNeedDiverseBooks. (We have some. We need more.)

I'm writing this before the #WeNeedDiverseBooks campaign officially begins, and the hashtag is already trending on Twitter. People from all walks of the reading life are posting reasons we need more books for kids and teens that reflect the way our world really looks, and I couldn't be prouder of how it's catching on.

It's a fact of life as a brick-and-mortar store that we exist in one spot, and our demographics reflect that spot. But if you picture Brookline as an area where everyone looks, talks, and thinks alike, I urge you to look and listen to the people around you next time you walk through our doors. This is a place where a recent Chinese immigrant might ask where the bar mitzvah cards are. It's a place where you'll probably hear three or four languages in the course of a day. It's a place where I've seen firsthand that some things, especially some things about kids, are universal: a smile and a "she's so cute!" works across a language barrier, and parents from everywhere know that babies need books safe for chewing. It's also a place where adults use the YA section along with other sections as a resource for LGBT fiction, and where many parents light up when you tell them that a chapter book takes place in "Africa, amazing Africa!" Mommy, Mama, and Me sells here. So does Buenas Noches, Gorila. So does The Snowy Day, to customers of all colors and, for whatever reason, in all seasons. (I'm not complaining.) Where the Mountain Meets the Moon is rocking out. So is Out of My Mind. By and large, our customers recognize that there are people of all kinds in the world and welcome opportunities to share that truth with their kids.

A major goal of the #WeNeedDiverseBooks campaign is to combat the pervasive belief that "the market" won't support books with more diversity. I'm definitely not pretending that we - that I - don't have room to grow in the literature we read and produce and sell, but I hope we can serve as a small example of how #WeNeedDiverseBooks, because somebody bought the last copy on the shelf and it's time to restock.

There's one thing on all our minds today.

Happy Marathon Monday from the kids' section and from all of us at Booksmith.

Norton Juster is a rock star.

I arrived at the Boston Public Library about an hour early to hear Norton Juster, a children's author best known for a gentle 1961 fantasy called The Phantom Tollbooth. I was seventh in line. I was not the oldest one there, nor was I primarily surrounded by people in the children's book biz (though plenty of them soon joined the line). Several generations of Juster's fans eventually filled the lecture hall, abuzz with twenty-, thirty-, forty-year-old memories of discovering his work and with plans to hand signed copies to children and grandchildren.

Juster, in conversation with Megan Lambert, showed off a sense of humor that echoed a nearly-bygone generation of comedy (think Mel Brooks or Rodney Dangerfield). But amid all the friendly pot-shots at himself was a sense of wonder, of joy in the realization that everything we learn is connected. In particular, he exuded wonder in wordplay (punder, if you will). Much as we all enjoyed Juster's answers to Lambert's questions, he had three pun-laden passages to read from TPT, and until he got those puns out, he cut every tangent short with a "but let's get back to the story."

As often happens in Q&A sessions (am I right, events team?), many of the audience members began their questions with comments. And by "comments," I mean "gushing." Everyone had stories of growing up with Milo or of sharing his adventures with children. One mom said that her seventeen-year-old daughter had read TPT recently and had asked her to share that it had made her less "jaded."

So what is it about this book? I think its core lies in the title of Chapter 9: "It's All in How You Look at Things." Milo sees life as boring until he encounters new ways of looking at words, numbers, sight, sound, height, hunger, rhyme, and reason. Juster looked at The Phantom Tollbooth as a way to put off a more technical writing project. And I look at Norton Juster as a rock star.

Check out the BPL's Lowell Lecture Series here.

Signs that spring has come to the kids' section

There is no snow on the floor. (There is occasional frozen yogurt on the table.)

We have books like this,

 

this,

and this.


There are new releases in bloom.

Loyal young fans flock to the store, asking if the books they've been waiting for are out yet.



Sorry, Selection fans - The One isn't out yet, though we're happy to reserve it for you. When it shows up on May 6, we promise to rush it to the shelves.


We booksellers are bursting to recommend the ones we've read in advance.


You'll know it's April 8 when Amy and I start racing to handsell you John Corey Whaley's latest.

Also! New Mo Willems! April 1! Not a joke! I repeat, this is not a joke!



It's spring, you guys. It's almost reading-outside weather. Come. Get books.

"So my friend/sister/coworker/neighbor/cousin is having a baby..."

One of the most common recommendation requests we get in the kids' section is for new baby gifts (and glad we are that new readers keep arriving in the world). It's also one of the easiest questions we get, because there are so many right answers.

Want to give the baby something to use right away? You basically can't go wrong in the board book section; anything there can be held on a lap and hold up against the baby's little hands, which will get curious and destructive as the months pass. For newborns, I often recommend Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes, a sweet, lilting text that you can't help but read soothingly.

In general, very short, simple texts with eye-catching pictures work well: Bonus: If the words are simple enough, older siblings may be able to read the book aloud.

The House in the Night is also a great bedtime book. (Tip: Yes, every child should own Goodnight Moon, but at least one other friend or relative will realize that.)

Don't feel you have to limit yourself to board books, though. You're not just welcoming a new baby; you're welcoming a new child, and if there's a book for older kids that holds fond memories for you, it'll be that much more meaningful.  (Tip: If you're the only Bostonian friend or relative, it may be up to you to get Make Way for Ducklings into the child's hands.)

Imagine the parent saying in a few years, "Uncle So-and-So gave you this when you were born, and I think you're ready for it now."

Really, the possibilities are endless.

Oh, the rants we will rant!

When the sun doesn't shine, and the snow turns to slosh,

and our boots fill with cold, muddy water, then gosh,

oh, the rants we can rant! We have restocking rants,

and rants about shrinkwrap, and rants about pants.

We rant about Mercury's long retrograde.

We rant at distinctions that publishing's made.

We rant when YA is considered inferior,

rant when the spinner's a pain-in-posterior,

rant when a title excludes girls or boys,

and rant when announcements are drowned out with noise.

We wave our arms jerkily. Speech grows frenetic.

You might say it's nonsense; you might say poetic.

We feel all the feelings and just have to share. 

So laugh all you want, but we rant 'cause we care.

(Dr. Seuss's birthday is March 2, and our display in his honor just went up. I am always willing to rant joyously about how he took the same reading vocabulary that less entertaining books were attempting to teach and created The Cat in the Hat, which taught kids that reading could be fun while also teaching both phonics and sight words through rhyme and repetition. See, there I go.) 

Before they were cool: Newbery, Caldecott, and other ALA Youth Media Award winners

When Journey came in, Clarissa showed it to everyone. "Look! Isn't this gorgeous? GAAAAAAAAH!" (Possibly not her exact words, but a reasonable approximation, as anyone who's seen Clarissa get excited about a book can attest.) (Now it has a Caldecott Honor.)


When Doll Bones came in, longtime Holly Black fan Amy wrote a recommendation and started handselling. If the sales figures are any indication, she's helped the book reach quite a few of Brookline's young readers. (Now it has a Newbery Honor.)



When Flora and Ulysses came in, I had every intention of popularizing the phrase "holy unanticipated occurrences!" That didn't really happen, but I did have fun selling the book. (Now it has the Newbery Medal.)



When Locomotive came in, Paul was all, "I love that book!" I imagine that his kids were, too. (Now it has the Caldecott Medal.)






When a gaggle of YA authors including Rainbow Rowell and David Levithan came to the store, a gaggle of us - the kids' team plus Kat plus Anna plus possibly whoever I'm forgetting - not only stayed for the event, we waited until the loooong signing line was gone so we could get our own books signed, chat with the authors, and sample the pumpkin mocha breve muffins one fan had left for Rainbow. (Now Eleanor and Park has a Printz Honor, and Two Boys Kissing has a Stonewall Honor.)

The full list of winners, announced last Monday, is here. There were less familiar books that went immediately onto our to-read lists, and there were books left off that we'll lovingly recommend anyway. (Like this one.) But it's nice to be able to brag a little: we (and, in many cases, our customers) liked these books before they were cool.

Today

It's a day to remember,



a day to ask questions,



even if the answers aren't always simple.



It's a day to hope.



It's a day for regret,



but at its core,



it's a day to celebrate.

Top 10 observations on our top 25 kids' books of 2013

For those who prefer their lists in words, Booksmith's top 25 kids' and young adult bestsellers for 2013 were:

1. The Lighting Thief

2. The Hunger Games

3. The Fault in Our Stars

4. Charlie & the Chocolate Factory

5. Divergent

6. Make Way for Ducklings

7. The Book Thief

8. Wonder

9. Diary of a Wimpy Kid 9: Hard Luck

10. Good Night Boston

11. The House of Hades

12. Hello Boston

13. The One & Only Ivan

14. Looking for Alaska

15. The Very Hungry Caterpillar (board book)

16. The Day the Crayons Quit

17. Zolocolor

18. Goodnight, Goodnight, Construction Sight

19. Mockingjay

20. Good Night Gorilla (board book)

21. Ivy & Bean (book one)

22. A Big Guy Took My Ball

23. Anna Hibiscus (book one)

24. Let’s Go for a Drive

25. Goodnight Moon (board book)

A few observations:


Bostonians have a lot of hometown pride, and visitors to Boston are pretty proud, too. (Good Night Boston doesn't beat Goodnight Moon just anywhere.)

Local schools have a lot of sway around here. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory attained its high position largely because of a school order, and a lot of the (best) titles on the list were helped along by the Brookline Schools' summer reading program. I'm looking at you, Anna Hibiscus, Wonder, and The One and Only Ivan.

Speaking of Anna Hibiscus, handselling is powerful. Many of us love this charming, funny chapter book about a girl in "Africa, amazing Africa," and we recommend it to fans of Clementine and Ivy + Bean. It's nice to know that a book can be a bestseller here even if it's not necessarily a bestseller nationally.

Our bestsellers aren't dominated by any age group or genre. There are stories here of bullying, of demigods, of fights to the death on fictional reality TV, of ducks who find homes and of crayons who quit.

Our customers know that a book doesn't have to be shiny-new to be worth reading. They also know that if Jeff Kinney or Rick Riordan writes a new book, it's time to run, not walk, to the bookstore.

Movies are good for books, at least from a sales perspective. (I'll leave the debate on the artistic value of movie adaptations to you.) Popular new books are good for an author's old books. (Looking for Alaska has sold better, both here and nationally, since the success of The Fault in Our Stars and of John Green's online platform than it did when it came our or when it won the Printz.)

Elephant and Piggie will eventually take over the world.

Adults have discovered YA in a big way. Heck, they've even discovered intermediate fiction. At least a few of the Wonder purchases were for adult book clubs, and I hear it's been a citywide read in some places.

Still, our number-one seller, kids' or YA, was the first book in an intermediate series that's wildly popular with kids and has a fairly small adult readership. Amazing as it is to see adults discover our section, it's also nice to see that the kids' section is still about kids.

You have good taste, Brookline.

Happy 2014.

Dear Mr. Claus,

I've never written to you before, and I'm not going to start asking for things now. I just wanted to say thanks for some gifts that have already arrived this year. If anyone else is responsible, I hope you'll relay my gratitude; I'm told you've got connections.

Thank you, Mr. Claus, for the slew of smart, fun picture books this year. Books like Xander's Panda Party for young biologists; Rosie Revere, Engineer for young logical thinkers; and The Day the Crayons Quit for young artists and activists.

Thank you for the kinds of intermediate novels that Wonder made cool, like Counting by Sevens and The Thing About Luck; for Greek gods and wimpy kids who bring the young readers to us in droves; and for the classics that parents and grandparents are still bursting to share. Every time Anne of Green Gables rings up, an angel gets her wings.

Thank you for YA that never forgets to be awesome.

Thank you for knowledgeable, generous, funny coworkers, and for customers who express joy when they see us busy.

Enjoy the holiday, Mr. Claus. And if you need a few more book suggestions for the children of the world, my impression is that you know where to find us. We'll leave the milk and cookies in the break room. 

Yours merrily,

An appreciative children's bookseller

The Eight Nights of Thanksgivukkah: A muddled holiday song

On the first of Thanksgivukkah, the Booksmith gave to me...


a book with a wordless journey.

On the second of Thanksgivukkah, the Booksmith gave to me...



twins Ling and Ting, and a book with a wordless journey.

On the third of Thanksgivukkah, the Booksmith gave to me...

 

three factioned books, twins Ling and Ting, and a book with a wordless journey.

 

On the fourth of Thanksgivukkah, the Booksmith gave to me...

 

four Penderwicks, three factioned books, twins Ling and Ting, and a book with a wordless journey.

 

On the fifth of Thanksgivukkah, the Booksmith gave to me...

    

five festive tales! Four Penderwicks, three factioned books, twins Ling and Ting, and a book with a wordless journey.

On the sixth of Thanksgivukkah, the Booksmith gave to me...




six pairs of kids, five festive tales! Four Penderwicks, three factioned books, twins Ling and Ting, and a book with a wordless journey.

On the seventh of Thanksgivukkah, the Booksmith gave to me...



seven stacking spines, six pairs of kids, five festive tales! Four Penderwicks, three factioned books, twins Ling and Ting, and a book with a wordless journey.


On the eighth of Thanksgivukkah, the Booksmith gave to me...



Eight: hard green luck, seven stacking spines, six pairs of kids, five festive tales! Four Penderwicks, three factioned books, twins Ling and Ting, and a book with a wordless journey.

It's coming. Come on in.