For Parents

Indie Spotlight: The Red Balloon, St. Paul MN

By on March 28, 2013   /   Author Interviews, For Kids, For Parents, For Teachers, Indie Spotlight  

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Sue Cowing for MIXED-UP FILES:  Since it’s founding twenty-eight years ago, the Red Balloon Bookshop  (www.redballoonbookshop.com) has become famous among writers and readers as a top-notch children’s book store.  Today we’re talking with the shop’s new owner, Holly Weinkauf.

MUF:  Minneapolis-St. Paul must be a community of readers to sustain so many bookstores!  What is the Red Balloon’s particular appeal to those readers do you think?
HOLLY: Red Balloon Bookshop is in Saint Paul.  Even though Minneapolis – Saint Paul is really one big city, people who live here have strong neighborhood loyalty.  And fortunately we are in a community that supports the arts and literature and supports local businesses.

screenshot_684We are in a beautiful and very walkable neighborhood (when it’s not below freezing!) We provide great storytimes, author events and many other fun ways to engage kids and grown-ups with books.Our customers know they can come here to discover new books or find old favorites.  They know that when they come in we will be happy to help them find what they are looking for, make suggestions, and have a great conversation with them about books or anything else.  Everyone at Red Balloon loves connecting people of all ages with books.

MUF: What was it like to take over the reins of such a well-known and beloved shop?  What plans do you have for its future?
HOLLY: Exciting and a bit overwhelming.  I’ve learned a lot and continue to learn.  When I became the owner I knew and still know this is what I want to be doing.  Red Balloon is a combination of all of my passions – books and stories, children, families, community and small independent business.

A Hobbit celebration

A Hobbit celebration

While Red Balloon is well known and has strong community support, I’m surprised by the number of people who don’t know about us. Usually those are people who are new to the Twin Cities. One of the things we’ve been working on is letting people know we are here, reminding people we are here, and letting them all know that we have new energy at the store.

I’m excited to build on the strong bookstore community that Michele Cromer – Poire and Carol Erdahl began 28 years ago.  Red Balloon will continue to be a welcoming and inspiring place for everyone who loves children’s and YA books.

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RAVEN BOYS and their girl fans, with author Maggie Stiefvater

MUF: What do customers see and experience when they walk into The Red Balloon?  On the days between events, the browsing days, how do you go about connecting customers with books they will love?
HOLLY: We make a point of welcoming everyone who walks through our door.  We have a well -lit and colorful space with fun displays.  To connect people with the right books, we talk with them and we have shelf talkers and displays highlighting particular books for certain readers.  When a regular customer comes in, we often know what sorts of things he or she will like and we can show them what’s new.  We also send out a monthly newsletter with our events and a few book reviews and we connect with people on Facebook and Twitter sharing interesting book related info.screenshot_677

MUF: How do you “curate” the books you sell in your shop?  What do you keep an eye out for?
HOLLY: This is something we’re constantly working to get a better handle on.  We look at each section, what’s selling and what’s not, what do we have too much of what do we need more of…. and what do we know our customers like.

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William Alexander reads from GHOULISH SONG

MUF: We’re authors, so we just have to ask: what titles, fiction or nonfiction, do you and your staff most often recommend these days to middle-graders who come to The Red Balloon?
HOLLY: All of us who work at Red Balloon have our favorites and what we recommend changes depending on who we’re talking to and what’s new.  But most recently we’ve enjoyed selling William Alexander’s books.  Not only is his story a great story, a debut local author wins the National Book Award, but all of us at the store who’ve read Goblin’s Secret and Ghoulish Song have really enjoyed them.

MUF: Over the years, some of the most exciting children’s authors have appeared at The Red Balloon, and many of their books have made their debuts at your shop. In a few weeks you’ll be hosting the launch of an exciting new book of novel-like nonfiction called Wild Boy by Fairy Ring author Mary Losure, right?

WILD BOY publication party, Saturday April 13th at 2 pm.

WILD BOY publication party, Saturday April 13th at 2 pm.

HOLLY: We are definitely looking forward to celebrating Mary Losure’s book!  Events like these are another way we help connect people with books and have those terrific book related conversations.  Amy Oelkers, our Events Coordinator, does a great job of adding something special and unique to each of our events.

I truly enjoy the events we do with local authors and illustrators. It’s great to see grown-ups and kids excited about our local talent (we have a lot!) The local authors and illustrators often have a number of family and friends who come to the events and that definitely adds to the community feel of Red Balloon.

MUF: What are your plans for World Book Night, April 23rd?  What other organizations and community events does The Red Balloon get involved in?
HOLLY: We have a few givers who pick up their books at Red Balloon and we will have a reception for them.  We partner with many, many community organizations throughout the year.  This month we worked with an organization called Success Beyond the Classroom for an amazing “Young Authors” conference.  In April we will be working with the Minnesota Youth Reading Awards to promote the Maud Heart Lovelace Award.

MUF: We encourage our Mixed-up Files readers, especially those who live in towns without an independent bookstore, to make children’s bookstores a day-trip destination.  For those visiting The Red Balloon from out of town, are there family-friendly places nearby where they can get a bit to eat after browsing?  Anything else unique in the neighborhood they should be sure to see?screenshot_671
HOLLY: We are in a terrific day-trip destination neighborhood. Our beautiful, historic neighborhood has lots of great shops.  Bread & Chocolate is a few doors down from us with sandwiches, cookies, coffee, etc. Grand Ole Creamery is nearby for ice cream, Tru Berry for yogurt, and Creative Kids Stuff for toys.  You can learn more about our shopping district at http://www.grandave.com.

Downtown St. Paul is just a few minutes away with both the Minnesota Children’s Museum and the Science Museum of Minnesota.

MUF:  Thank you so much, Holly, for taking the time to visit and answer questions about your shop.  Readers, have you been to The Red Balloon? heard about it? think you’d like to go?   Please leave comments here for Holly  and other readers and/or share some children’s bookstore experiences.  Notice I don’t have to say independent children’s bookstores, because they’re all independent!

 

Sue Cowing lives in Honolulu and is the author of the puppet-and-boy novel YOU WILL CALL ME DROG (Carolrhoda 2011, Usborne UK 2012)

 

 

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Indie Spotlight: [words] Bookstore, Maplewood NJ

By on February 28, 2013   /   Author Interviews, For Parents, For Teachers, Indie Spotlight  

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Mixed-Up Files posts monthly interviews with the owners of children’s-only bookstores and there are still many more of those to feature, but I’ve recently discovered [words] bookstore in Maplewood, N.J. (wordsbookstore.com), a general independent bookstore with a strong emphasis on children’s books, and most importantly with a unique and hopeful mission. This is a bookstore with a heart, and I’m eager to spread the news. Today I’m talking with [words]Co-owner Jonah Zimiles.

[word] Co-owners Jonah and Ellen Zimiles

[word] Co-owners Jonah and Ellen Zimiles

MUF: I gather you first got into the bookstore business because the only bookstore in Maplewood was closing? How brave!
Jonah: Thank you. We have lived in Maplewood for twenty-three years and raised our two children here. When the economy deteriorated in the Fall of 2008, we wanted to find a way to help our community. My wife and son were walking in town when she saw a sign saying that the bookstore was closing in a month. Ellen thought that we should buy the bookstore, even though we did not have retail or book industry experience.

MUF: Your store has also taken on the unique mission “to help Maplewood become a model community of inclusion” by acknowledging and serving a special community, families with members on the autism spectrum. How did that come about?
Jonah: In addition to assisting our community buffeted by the recession, we were interested in providing a model vocational training program for young people with autism. Our hope is that through our bookstore, we will inspire other for-profit businesses to hire employees with autism. Our son, who is now 17, has autism. We have always found Maplewood to be a warm and welcoming community, and we wanted to play our part in furthering that culture.screenshot_639

MUF: Tell us about your “Second Sundays.”
Jonah: Our Second Sundays programs were created to provide parents of special needs children the opportunity to sample for free many activities that are often available for typical children but unfortunately not for the special needs population. At the same time, it allows us to acknowledge and publicize service providers who are offering these services or to give new ones considering this market a chance to try out working with our kids at our store. Activities include: yoga, karate, arts & crafts, drama, sewing and cooking, to name a few.screenshot_629

MUF: Not only do you welcome autism syndrome kids in your store and provide programs they can take part in, you also employ them as part-time workers and provide vocational training. Tell us how that works.
Jonah: Most of our kids come to us through job sampling programs in their school. They come in small groups with job coaches once or twice per week and progress through a series of jobs depending upon their skill levels and interests. We also have paid employees on our staff with autism.

MUF: Say a ten-year-old comes into your store looking for “a good book.” Do you have some favorite titles, fiction or nonfiction, that you are especially recommending to middle-graders right now?
Jonah: Our middle graders love Rick Riordan, Jeff Kinney and Dan Gutman. One of our favorite books is R. J. Palacio’s Wonder.screenshot_631

MUF: I’ve just re-read Marcello in the Real World for a workshop. It seems there have been a slew of original and engaging novels for children in the last few years whose main characters are somewhere along the autism spectrum——Mockingbird, London Eye Mystery, The Blue Bottle Mystery, Colin Fisher — and that these stories have the positive side-effect of creating insight and understanding in the general reader. Are these books popular at your store? Have any of their authors come for a visit?
Picture 30Jonah: We have seven or eight autism authors visit our store for readings during April for Autism Awareness Month but these authors so far have been non-fiction authors. We have tried unsuccessfully to get Jodi Picoult to our store. Some of our favorites have included practitioners like Ricki Robinson, author of Autism Solutions, researchers like Martha Herbert, author of The Autism Revolution, and parents, like Priscilla Gilman, author of The Anti-Romantic Child: A Story of Unexpected Joy.

MUF: [Words] became an instant community center in another sense after Hurricane Sandy hit, didn’t it?

[words], a haven during Sandy

[words], a haven during Sandy

Jonah: Yes! Most of the power in our town (including in the homes of our owners and most of our employees) and the surrounding towns were knocked out for a week, but power was maintained on the block where [words] is located, so we became a community center to which people came to charge their cell phones and computers, learn the latest news, and to get some needed respite from the travails of the storm and the power outage.

MUF: If a family from out of town came to visit your store, would there be a family-friendly place nearby where they could get a bite to eat after browsing?
Jonah: Yes, dozens! Arturo’s across the street is extremely popular and delicious, and the Laurel offers a terrific relaxed atmosphere with great food.

MUF: And if they could spend some time in Maplewood, are there some family activities or sights in the area that they shouldn’t miss?
Jonah: In addition to our quaint village with many fine shops, we have a beautiful park in our town that is well worth a visit, as well as a gigantic nature preserve, the South Mountain reservation. Of course, the best reason to come to Maplewood is to meet the Maplewoodians!screenshot_636

MUF: Any exciting programs coming up in March?
Jonah: Many! Two are of particular note. On Saturday, March 2, we celebrate Read Across America, with a kids’ Pitchapalooza featuring four local children’s authors. On March 20, Harlan Coben kicks off his publicity tour for his exciting new thriller, Six Years.

MUF: Thank you so much , Jonah, for sharing the goals and programs of your store with us.

Readers, if you’re as inspired as I am to read about what Jonah and Ellen are doing at [words], I’m sure they’d love to hear your comments–and have you visit!screenshot_624

Sue Cowing is the author of the middle-grade puppet-and-boy novel, You Will Call Me Drog, published in 2011 by Carolrhoda Books and in 2012 by Usborne UK

 

 

 

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In the Name of Research

By on January 30, 2013   /   For Parents  

For school, my fourth-grader is preparing to be Marco Polo. Or to be more exact, an imaginary female accompanying the fourteenth-century merchant traveler from Venice. I don’t know if Marco Polo had female companions on the Silk Road, but since my nine-year-old is a girl, this is the best way she can pretend to be a part of that time and place.

Venetian merchant traveler, Marco Polo. Source: Wikipedia

This isn’t her idea, by the way. It’s her teacher’s. It’s part of their “Explorer” unit, where they get to research a famous explorer from the past, and present their findings to the class, while dressed in period costume. The challenge isn’t finding enough information from books or online. The challenge isn’t writing it all down. The challenge, and this is where the dear parent being me is involved, is finding the dang period costume.

Where exactly am I supposed to find a Venetian, medieval gown for a nine-year-old girl?

Source: Morgue Files

My daughter and I have been discussing ways to render this outfit, using items from our 21th century, Indian-American household. These include sari material, scarves, throws, Indian bedspreads, and a belt I used when I was nine-years-old myself. You could call it improvising. But would you call it research?

Research is an interesting concept, especially in the life of an author. These days, you have the most amount of information you’ve ever had right at your fingertips. A simple Google search can yield paintings of women in the time of Marco Polo, online catalogs where you can purchase period costumes for adults, children, or pets, and Wikipedia pages describing the items Polo discovered on his journey to the Far East. You don’t have to go far to go back far in time.

When I was first writing my children’s novel, VANISHED, I did similar research online, learning as much as I could from Google, about an ancient, South-Indian instrument known as the veena. This was the instrument that would belong to my book’s main character, the one that would go missing, and that she would go to great lengths to recover. At the time, the only person I knew who owned this instrument lived in another state. There were no nearby teachers or veena players.So I did what any other able-bodied author did – I imagined everything. I used my years of being a violinist to imagine how the strings felt when you played on a veena instead, the calluses that formed on your fingers from practicing, the fears of sounding “twangy” in front of others, and what a seemingly unsympathetic teacher might sound like when she’s badgering you to practice. During the summer, I interviewed a real veena teacher in person, and took photographs. And that’s how I wrote my book.

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The box I carried my veena in from India to New York.

Today I actually have a veena of my own. With great care and a certain amount of luck, I was able to bring one back from a trip to India last year. Not only that, I actually found a teacher near me, one I didn’t meet until very recently. And I have to say, imagination aside, there is nothing like playing on the real thing. Finally I know firsthand what being a veena player is all about. Looking back at the book I published, I strangely got the details right – the strings really do feel the way I’d written about them! Still, nothing beats the feel and sound of a real instrument – for me the author, and for others who have read my book and get to see and hear the instrument for themselves.

Creative research is definitely a way to bring something otherwise inaccessible to life. Perhaps the materials my daughter will use for her Explorer project will be derived from a silk sari given by her Indian grandmother, or from a Rajasthani bedspread brought back from a trip to India. And maybe the cloak will come from Walmart. She, like her classmates, will have to imagine much.

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Source: Flikr

But the real physical and tactile experience of assembling the various materials together,  of wearing them and walking around in them, might evoke a sense of what it was like to be a lady in Marco Polo’s time, hundreds of years ago.

We cannot underestimate the value of a real experience, even a simplified or modified one. Sometimes these real moments have the power to take us farther than a Google search, and we become the musicians and explorers we first could only imagine being inside our heads. 

In the meanwhile, if someone has a spare Venetian, medieval gown that fits a nine-year old, please let this parent (and author) know.

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Sheela Chari is the author of VANISHED, which was recently featured as an Al’s Book Club Pick on the Today Show. She lives in New York.

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