Scaredy Squirrel Rules!

Meet Scaredy Squirrel.  He is a squirrel that is afraid to leave his nut tree, well actually he is afraid of a whole lot of things….germs, sharks, spiders and way more!  He spends his days preparing for all manners of catastrophes.  Scaredy Squirrel is the star of three children’s picture books: “Scaredy Squirrel”, “Scaredy Squirrel Makes A Friend” and “Scaredy Squirrel Goes To The Beach”.  With simple illustrations and hilarious text, kids can relate to this timid squirrel who fears everything but always finds out that the world is not so scary after all.

Great news!  Scaredy Squirrel (the first book) is now out in paperback!  As soon as I find someone who has a flying squirrel for a pet, we are definitely going to have Scaredy Squirrel day!

Miss Rumphius at Titcomb’s!

Check out our new stairs!  A few weeks ago, I posted pictures of the Bookshop on our website.  I wanted to show people how we have been moving things around.  They weren’t great pictures, but I thought it would be fun to just put them out there.  Well…..Mom (Nancy Titcomb to you) was horrified.  She thought the picture going downstairs to the basement “looked like you were going to prison”.  I didn’t think that it looked that bad (and held my wise-cracking tongue from asking how she would know how it looked to go to prison)…but she was not happy and she kicked in to high gear.  Look at what she did!  She not only re-oiled the wood stairs but she painted the most beautiful mural on both sides of the walls going downstairs.  Elizabeh declared it to be Miss Rumphius in person (check out the book picture so you can compare).  There are all different types of butterflies, several bunnies and all different kinds of beautiful flowers.  I can’t wait until our story times start up again.  The kids are going to love it!  Make sure you check it out the next time you visit.

Sometimes I feel bad that we are not as “professional” as the chain bookstores. We often have piles of books around that we are waiting to deal with and our desk is usually littered with scraps of paper with notes on books we need to look at or whatever.  I also secretly covet the shelf and aisle space at the chain stores.  This mural, among many many other things, reminds me of how great it is to be independent and family owned.  We can do whatever we want!  Yipee! 

Jeff Kinney Comes To Sandwich!

We have often said that there is not necessarily a correlation between being a talented author and being a good public speaker, being gracious with people or even, as a matter of fact, being a nice person. We were visited yesterday by an author who combined all these traits (what is a trifecta if it includes four things?? can you have a quadfecta?).

Jeff Kinney, author of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series, came to Sandwich. He showed up early (we are already feeling good about this signing!). He listened to the middle school band that we had playing in the auditorium prior to the start of the program (called the Rolling Pebbles in case you need to know). When he found out that we had been expecting him to come in through a different door and had a group of students waiting to greet him, he immediately said “Let’s absolutely go back there” so as not to disappoint them. (We are feeling really good about this person at this point).

He gave a funny, interactive and informative talk that appealed to both the adults and the kids in the room (400 of them in the room, by the way). The talk was followed by time for book signing. Here the line went a bit slow….we heard a little grumbling in the crowd about waiting. But…we only saw smiles from people leaving the signing line because of how gracious and attentive Jeff was to each kid he was talking to. One Mom told me that he offered to talk to her son on her cell phone because he couldn’t be there and she was getting his book signed for him (unfortunately no cell reception in the auditorium!). Almost every family took a picture with him.

To top the afternoon off…after signing books for an hour and a half, Jeff Kinney agreed to drive with us to the Bookshop and sign stock copies of his books for us. We hated to be pushy enough to ask, but we have a tradition of getting a picture of every visiting author next to our sign and statue out front. We needed that picture for our author wall! (Ask Vicky sometime how badly we wanted that picture ) But wait…there’s more! He even drew a picture of Greg Heffley for us to hang up in the shop!

What a great example for all of the kids, and adults really, in the audience. Here is an author who has had a book at the top of the New York Times Best Seller list for over a year with huge demands on his time (he has a full time job that is not being an author) and he graciously spent time giving us all a little insight into his books. Jeff Kinney set the bar high for future visiting authors and we cannot tell you how much we appreciated his visit.

Behold The Dumpster!

Our dumpsters came! Yeah! I suppose that a bookstore blog should really speak to all things bookish…but I look at the blog as a way to visit Titcomb’s Bookshop when you can’t actually walk in the door. A little window into our day. So…anyway….yesterday we officially got underway with our recycling effort. We get shipments of books/toys/cards/stationary every day. Each shipment comes in a cardboard box. On any given day we were stuffing 2 to 5 boxes into our dumpster to be sent to the landfill (14-35 boxes weekly). What a waste! We have now moved to a 2 dumpster system. All paper and cardboard goes into one dumpster (which is picked up bi-weekly) and the rest of the garbage (minus whatever Mom can compost or recycle) goes in to dumpster #2 which is picked up once a month. This whole system makes more sense and, believe it or not, saves us money! How cool is that?? We were so pleased that we even took a picture to share with the world. Behold, the dumpsters.

It Takes A Child

Titcomb’s Bookshop has been in business since 1969.  (Another time I’ll tell you the story of its beginnings, it’s a good story if you haven’t heard it yet.)  All of the 8 children have worked in the shop at one time or another. Since the shop is next to the house where we have lived since 1969, even if we weren’t actually working in the shop we were around books.  Lots and lots of books.  For 25 years the shop only carried used and rare books so we were surrounded by lots and lots of old books.  We love old books.  But….sometimes…..after being around such interesting things you start to take them for granted.  A copy of Thoreau’s Walden from 1909?   Eh…..we see them a lot, no biggie.  Another poetry collection from the late 1800’s, wish it had a prettier cover.

Sometimes you just need a fresh perspective to see the coolness around you.  My 10 year old son came to the Bookshop today (a Titcomb grandchild).  He’s been here plenty of times, but today he was hanging out in the office which is littered with old books (its like old book limbo).  He was suddenly struck by the oldness of everything around him.  “This was really printed in 1850???”, “Wow!  I can see how the type is different.  Did they use a printing press?”  He asked to see the oldest book we have.  When I told him we have a medical book from the 1600’s, his eyes lit up.  “REALLY?, Can I see it?”  (I shouldn’t skip another funny part of the story.  His 7 year old brother looked at an old family bible from the early 1800’s.  His questions was “Is this the real bible? the one written by God?”)

The book was Culpeper’s Directory For Midwives: Or A Guide For Women from 1676 .  It is a wonderful leather bound, thick book that even contains a foldout diagram of how the baby sits in the womb.  We were excited about this book the moment we saw it, but somehow it takes a fresh face to come in and say “This book was around before George Washington was born” to make you realize how cool/exceptional/rare some of the books we see are.

Adam left the shop, but not until he bought his own old book.  He bought a children’s book from 1843 called “Tales and Illustrations by Charlotte Edwards”.  It’s a book of Sunday School stories.  In terms of what we have seen pass through our shop, it’s a ho-hum book where the term “illustrations” is overstated because it has only one!  For Adam, it is the start of a collection and a prized possession.  It is a book that pre-dates the Civil War, the television and even the lightbulb.  Countless hours can be spent pondering his question “I wonder who owned this”.   Hey, it could have been Einstein’s book!  It has an honored spot in his special wooden collection box at the moment.  We have witnessed the creation of a book collector!

A Book For A Sensitive Topic

Where Did I Come From? by Peter Mayle

We were going to include this book in the monthly email newsletter, but decided it really wouldn’t be of interest to that many people.  But…as  I can attest, if you are in the market for a book that answers the dreaded questions (”How do you make a baby?” “How does the baby get out of your tummy?” or “Why don’t you have a penis?”) then you will certainly welcome a book suggestion!  I was always able to answer these questions with very brief answers or announcing that we should go get cookies in the kitchen.

I knew eventually more explanation would be needed.  That day came after an older friend saw “The Movie” at school.  I casually looked through some of the health education books out there and didn’t feel comfortable with any of them.  Way, way, way too much information!  I think that answering the s-e-x questions comes at one stage and then answering the bigger puberty type questions comes at another time (but that’s me).  I was looking for something that gave an accurate (but not clinical) overview.  I found what I was looking for in “Where Did I Come From” by Peter Mayle.  The book is funny and in very easy language outlines the whole process.  Illustrations are done in cartoon type drawings that are anatomically correct.  I found it to have just enough information without being embarassing for any of us involved!  (Although the level of detail of information is probably appropriate to answer the questions of kids 9-12.  This would be too much detail for an inquisitive 5 year old.)

Good luck!

If You Give A Bookshop A Great Author…..They’ll Throw A Party!

Having a blog is such fun! Now we can share things in a much quicker manner than our monthly email newsletter (not that that will go away anytime soon, we love our newsletter!)

We were very happy to host a book signing with children’s author Laura Numeroff (there is no way you haven’t read the book If You Give A Mouse A Cookie!). We decided to share our good fortune and create a special story time event with the Sandwich Public Library. On Wednesday March 12th, over 150 people gathered to hear Ms. Numeroff read from her newest book The Jellybeans and The Big Dance. We even had a guest ballerina for the event (as you can see from the pictures).

Laura Numeroff was such a gracious guest that she even held a special talk at the bookshop for the second grade class from Cape Cod Academy bright and early on Wednesday morning. (When an author is on an exhausting book tour, asking them to come host a group of second graders at 8:30am is pretty pushy on our part and extremely kind on her part to agree!) They discussed circular writing.

If you missed the event, we do have a limited number of signed picture books available for sale. Call or come in if you’re interested. If you didn’t know about this event ahead of time you should have been on our email newsletter list! Sign up on the main page of our website.

Book Review: Remember Me by Sophie Kinsella

Reason #2 to have a blog….mid-month book reviews!  It is always a struggle to gather book reviews for the monthly email newsletter.  It’s hard to remember what you read 30 days ago!  Blog=Book reviews as soon as you finish them.
 

Remember Me by Sophie Kinsella.  I just finished Remember Me from the very funny British author of the Shopaholic series.  It’s a light, fun read.  Sophie Kinsella has a knack for creating dialogue or little situations that will stay with you.  In the first Shopaholic book, the letter from the Bank of Finland (that reads “finnish, finnish, more finnish…”) can still make me laugh out loud.  Remember Me is the story of Lexi Smart.  Lexi wakes up from a car accident with amnesia.  She last remembers her life in 2004 when she was a struggling office worker with an immature boyfriend and teeth so bad her nickname is “Snaggletooth”.  She awakens in the hospital to find that it is 2007 and she is svelte, straight-toothed, wealthy, sucessful and married. She struggles to figure out which Lexi is real.  A fun spring read.

We’re starting a blog! Fancy Nancy Tea Party

We have a blog! We have a blog! We have a blog!………Oh….we have a blog….now what do we do with it?

We don’t completely understand what we will do with a blog, but we know that communicating with everyone only once a month in our email newsletter is just not enough for people as chatty as we are!  Ergo, the blog.

The first thing we couldn’t wait to talk about was the Fancy Nancy Tea Party.  It was fabulous!  90 girls and their partners (moms, grandmothers, aunts, godparents, etc..) joined us at Beth’s Special Teas in Sandwich for a Fancy Nancy Tea Party.  The outfits were to die for.  We saw boas, hats, gloves, tiaras and lots and lots of tulle.  We did some crafts, learned how to officially curtsey, read the very latest Fancy Nancy book by Jane O’Connor (Fancy Nancy Bonjour Butterfly), learned some tea etiquette and then learned a little french from our “Paris exchange students” Coco and Chloe.  We had so much fun, we will definitely be doing it again. 

Here is a picture of some of the girls….for a few more pictures go to http://www.titcombsbookshop.com/pastevents.html