bookstores – Peaceful Reader

Of course we ventured into a few bookstores in the city and bought a couple a books but mostly we just loved the comfort zone of books surrounding us.

{G.G. @TheStrand}

The Strand; Oldest daughter spent last summer in NYC working as an intern and loved pretty much everything about being a New Yorker. Her favorite book shop was this one. Groovy Girl and I met up in the children’s section and picked up the exact same picture book, read it, set it down minutes from each other and laughed about it when we realized we’d been reading the same book. I ended up buying the picture book as this was a pretty significant moment and later in life or even tomorrow I can look at this picture book, Tallulah’s Tutu by Marilyn Singer, and remember that we had this “in sync” moment.

Shakespeare and Co.: Big Daddy saw this bookstore just two blocks away from The Strand and we ducked in to see what we could see. It might have been a quick {ish} stop if he hadn’t found the downstairs script area. I think he bought about 8 plays to review for this coming year. They had a lovely selection of children’s book as well and we loved just browsing.

{G.G. @Shakespeare&Co.}

We could have spent hours at both bookstores just for the respite in-between walking. I’d wanted to find Books of Wonder but we never made it there, which means there must be another trip.

by Kathleen T. Pelley
ill. by Paige Keiser
(2011)

Felicity holds up her beautiful new kitty and christens him “Raj” because of his golden coat and his chocolate stripes. Raj patrols Felicity’s bookstore with the ferocity of a real tiger, happy with his life. “Mornings began with a patrol of the storerooms, followed by sun basking in the front window.” and “after a face wash and a snooze, it was time to greet the customers with a leg rub or a hearty meow.” Oh the simple happiness.

And then Snowball comes to town…or at least to the bookstore and quickly dampens Raj’s tiger tendencies. Snowball now struts his stuff while Raj cowers under chairs. The reason for Raj’s sudden sadness…Snowball informs him that he’s “not a real tiger. In fact, you’re just a plain old marmalade kitty-cat with muddy brown splotches that some people might call stripes.” (insert snarky cat tone)

Oh, the indignation and with those words Raj is not the reigning cat of the bookstore.After days of kitty sadness, Felicity reads from William Blake’s The Tiger , perking Raj up just a bit. Then Sanjiv Patel comes for the bookstore’s storytime and shares a video of India. A Bengal tiger roars on screen, scaring Snowball and Raj, except he remembers Blake’s poem and “roars” back.

Words can help or hurt and someone can easily take your gusto away just as it happens to Raj. Reading this to students it could easily be applied to bullying and self esteem. Would you rather cower under a chair or rise up and roar!

Paige Keiser’s illustrations are charming and softly drawn. Kaiser has a wonderful blog…Fox in Socks.

Other thoughts:

Roxanne at Books That Heal Kids and
Successful Teaching review it as well.

Tag: bookstores

Ahhh, the bookstores…{NYC}

Raj the bookstore Tiger