New York City is quite the literary town, but there is one place I hear about repeatedly in my line of work. The famous, fun, and fabulous children’s bookstore, Books of Wonder. On a recent trip to the city, Katie and I stopped by their 18th Street location to bask in the stuff of legend.
Independently owned and operated, Books of Wonder first opened its doors in 1980. Originally slated to sell antiquarian children’s books, the stock soon expanded to encompass new children’s books as well. In 37 years of business, Books of Wonder has moved, expanded multiple times, coordinated events both large and small, launched a publishing division, and become the keepers and champions of Frank Baum’s Oz books. Another interesting fact – Books of Wonder inspired the setting for the children’s bookstore in You’ve Got Mail, right down to being measured, photographed, and rebuilt on the movie’s sound stage.
Books of Wonder is PACKED with a huge selection of books. The books are so enticingly displayed, you just want to grab one and read it right away (and plenty of readers were camped out on the floor and in little chairs, doing just that). They have quantities of signed copies too.
Katie left with not one but two signed copies of The Girl Who Drank the Moon (the 2017 Newbery winner). Once I torn myself away from the stacks, I turned my eyes to the quirky and inviting decor.
Layered on endcaps, tables, walls, and bookshelves are posters, original artwork, and characters from illustrated books. It almost feels like you’re inside some sort of awesome pop-up book. Do you recognize the dragon in the image that started this post?
Yup! It’s by author and illustrator Steve Light, wielder of the fountain pen extraordinaire (we made these fantastical steampunk airship for his book, Zephyr Takes Flight). The artwork pops up in unusual places too. Curious George swinging from a light fixture…
A street scene on the floor of the gallery:
The back wall of the store is dedicated to Books of Wonder’s extensive antiquarian and rare books section.
Here you can find an amazing array of your favorites. If you’re wondering how much a first edition of Where the Wild Things Are (inscribed, with an original sketch) is going for these days, it’s $22,500.
Not far from the rare books, I was delighted to find a real live author signing books! In fact, I shouted across three shelves of retail space to tell Katie that Rowboat Watkins was in the store. Rowboat is the author and illustrator of Rude Cakes (which I love, and which we story timed here). His newest book is Pete With No Pants. Not only did I get a signed copy of Rude Cakes, Rowboat let me model his awesome headgear.
Moving towards the front of the store, I soon discovered “Blind Date With A Book.”
Essentially, it’s a book wrapped in brown paper with a suggested age range, genre, and enticing teaser. YES!
I almost bought this one…
One more fantastic detail. At the front of the store are thank you illustrations from visiting artists. It reminded me of the fabulous conference room walls at the Mazza Museum (which you can see at the end of this post).
Here’s my personal favorite:
Katie and I spent a happy hour shopping Books of Wonder before we had to dash to catch our train. My only regret is that I spotted this cool canvas logo bag as I was walking out the door. Too late to go back and snag it, darn it!
But not to worry. I’ll definitely return. In fact, in September a second location will be opening on 217 West 84th Street. If you’re in town, definitely make Books of Wonder a destination. Just be prepared to leave with LOTS of books. This store is bursting with love for children’s books. How can you resist taking some of the love home with you?
Hello from the Big Apple…we’re riding New York City’s subways today! We made tissue box subways, toilet paper tube passengers, and customized some special story time dollars. A quick stop at the MetroCard machine, and we were ready to zip through the tubes (and we mean that quite literally)!
Use tape to attach a jumbo paper clip underneath the front of the subway. The paperclip should extend approximately 0.75″ past the box. Later, we’ll use this paperclip to pull your subway through the tunnel.
Cut a toilet paper tube down until it fits inside your subway box, then decorate (we offered 
Cut and color some magic bucks from the template (you might recognize them from 
I made my machine out of a copy paper box. I cut slits for the money and the cards, then decorated it with poster board and construction paper. During story time, when the kids slid their cash into the slot, the machine would promptly dispense a MetroCard (this was done by a helper sitting behind the machine, catching the dollars and feeding cards through the slot).
If you don’t have a tube, don’t worry! Throw a sheet over a table, or use a couple boxes to make a tunnel. So long as the subway travels through something, you’re good to go!
You’ll notice there are two strings attached to the paperclip in the above photo. The second string allowed my helper to pull the paperclip back through the tube after each subway had finished. Otherwise, we would have had to stop, stand the tube on its end, and let the paperclip slide back down to the mouth of the tube every time.
Then the kids dashed to the other end of the tube, crouched down, and watched as I pulled their subway down the tube towards them. Awesome.
Follow exactly the same steps with the magic bucks and the MetroCard machine…and then haul the subways through the tube. The story time was a big hit! And the MetroCard machine actually stayed in the classroom, where it happily dispensed cards for the remainder of the school year.
