Take Your Child to
a Bookstore Day
A.K.A
How to Build
Literacy, Support Community, & Make Magic Happen
All in One Day
In 2010 I had two young children whom I was bringing to
story hour at our local bookstore almost every week. After all, what better activity
to do with kids? It was enriching, fun, even relaxing. I didn’t have to feel
guilty when I drank that 700 calorie butterscotch latte from the coffee bar. I
was running back and forth between adult fiction and the flower-flocked
children’s section—working off the calories for sure.
My kids probably didn’t realize it was as much of a treat
for me as for them. Which started me thinking—were other parents in on this
secret? How many children knew the pleasure of spending time in a bookstore?
I frequent the mystery listserv, DorothyL, and a more avid
group of readers you couldn’t hope to find. When I floated the idea for Take
Your Child to a Bookstore Day, bloggers on the listserv spread the word. My
husband designed a poster, a website, and bookmarks, and we designated the
first Saturday in December as Take Your Child to a Bookstore Day. This would
coincide with holiday gift giving, hopefully giving people the idea that books
make great presents. Just two weeks later, 80 bookstores were celebrating.
That summer my husband and I loaded the kids into the car
and drove cross-country, visiting more than fifty bookstores. (You can tell
he’s a supportive guy). In 2011, the second annual Take Your Child to a
Bookstore Day found over 350 bookstores celebrating in all 50 states. Some
planned special celebrations—children’s book authors, puppet makers, singers,
even a baker who led kids in a gingerbread cookie decorating activity—while
others simply hung a poster in the window. When 2013 came around, and the number
had risen to over 600 independent bookstores, and one major chain, we knew that
word was getting out. Kids + bookstores = magic.
And maybe something even more than that.
There’s a cultural wave behind Take Your Child to a
Bookstore Day. The word locavore isn’t just for a Dr. Seuss story
anymore. Supporting your local community and the resurgence of Main Street are
goals that more and more people recognize as important to build strong citizens
as well as strong readers.
You know that old ad campaign, “Orange juice isn’t just for
breakfast anymore”? I hear that now as, “Bookstores aren’t just for reading
anymore.”
And by that I mean more than the fact that you can also buy
toys, cards, gifts, or have your butterscotch latte at a bookstore. Bookstores are
places where people come together over ideas and engage in a cultural
conversation. That concept is so important I have to say it again. They are
places where people come together. And booksellers are a group who know
how to zig while others are zagging, so impassioned are they by their life’s
pursuit. Their stores are places of physical interaction in an increasingly
virtual world.
When you take a child to a bookstore, you stimulate his mind
and all five senses. (If taste seems a stretch, just let her have the whipped
cream on your latte). There’s a tactile dimension to the experience that seems
rare these days. You also make that child a crucial part of the place where he
lives, supporting it and helping it grow.
Best of all, these things happen in a guise that to the
child is sheer magic. On the shelves of a bookstore sit gateways into whole new
worlds. Children go into bookstores—but they come back out having journeyed
somewhere else entirely.
This Saturday, December 6, 2014 is the fifth annual Take
Your Child to a Bookstore Day. Whether you take your own child, a child you
know, or the child inside yourself to a bookstore, together let’s build
literacy, support community, and make magic happen.
Jenny Milchman is a suspense novelist and mom from the
Hudson River Valley who once drove past Disney with her children en route to
the nearest bookstore.
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