

2006-05-25 / Holden News

Dream becomes a reality

BY ROBIN HARNED RHARNED@HOLDENLANDMARK.COM

Nancy Bassett, seen here with a furry friend, has opened her Once Upon a Storybook children's bookstore at 787 Main Street. Steve King photo Nancy Bassett, seen here with a furry friend, has opened her Once Upon a Storybook children's bookstore at 787 Main Street. Steve King photo Once upon a time, Nancy Bassett had a dream: to connect children and books.

There may not have been a fairy godmother in this story or magical elves, but so far, it's been a happily ever after for the Rutland woman who's now a new Holden business owner.

In mid-April, Nancy, a former financial planner, local radio personality and childrens' librarian, opened her store Once Upon a Storybook at 787 Main St., in the plaza across from the Hess gas station that also houses Honey Farms, Bagel Inn, Pet Barn, Star Nails and the Sheep Shack.

The shop's bookshelves are lined with an array of childrens' books - poetry and special parenting collections, board books for infants and toddlers, picture books for children ages 4-8, as well as fiction and series books that can also be read by adults. Nancy, a Paxton native and 1979 graduate of Wachusett Regional High School, also sells specialty toys, featuring storybook characters, ones that are educational, developmental and encourage critical thinking.

The toys are also there for children to play with in the store's play area.

Opened for just a short time, the store has already received a lot of positive feedback from customers, who note the lack of children's book stores in the area and the recent closing of Tatnuck Booksellers in Worcester.

"They're happy that a store has opened here," she says. Customers are from all over the Wachusett region. And they're not just parents buying books for their kids - customers include home-schooled families and daycare providers. "My mailing list is growing," Nancy says.

She worked for five years in radio, working for WKNE 103.7 FM in Keene, N.H. and then hosting 96.1 WSRS's "Love Songs After Dark" for three years. During that time, Nancy also worked at the Rutland Free Public Library as children's librarian.

"That's when I discovered what I wanted to do for the rest of my life," she says.

New career

In 1998, she left radio work to help set up and run the library for Rutland's then-new Central Tree Middle School. She decided to go back to college, doing four years of online study through the University of Maine in Augusta, earning her bachelor of science degree in library and information technology, concentrating in children's library science.

It was around that time, however, that Nancy learned devastating news: she had breast cancer. She underwent treatment from May to November, going back to work as a children's librarian at the Shrewsbury Public Library.

Now a cancer survivor, Nancy says her perspective on life - what's important and what isn't - has changed since first learning of her diagnosis.

Even during a time when bookstores are closing, Nancy says opening Once Upon a Storybook is a risk well worth taking. "I lose if I don't try," she says. "I would feel I had failed myself if I hadn't tried. I wanted to do something for me and decided this was it. I wanted to create a positive, creative, colorful experience for the kids."

She hopes that Once Upon a Storybook will encourage and excite kids to read.

"That's my reward every day," she says. "When a child walks in and asks for a specific book and you have it, they are just so excited."

After searching the area for locations, Nancy opened her store on April 15. Once Upon a Storybook offers weekly storytimes at 10:30 a.m. on Saturdays. Already looking further to the future, Nancy hopes to invite authors for signings, additional puppet shows and storytimes, holiday crafts and creating Valentine's Day crafts to be sent to veterans in the Edith Nourse Rogers Veterans Hospital.

"I'm hoping, come February, that I can do something that could really make a difference," she says.

Once Upon a Storybook is open 10-6 p.m., Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays; 10-7 p.m. on Wednesdays; 11-5 p.m. on Saturdays (10:30 a.m. storytimes include music, stories and crafts); and 10-1 p.m. on Sundays.

For more information, call (508) 8292082.

Return to top

How to contact The Landmark

Subscriptions
and Delivery
Circulation Manager
Thomas Signa
508-749-3164, ext. 112
SUBSCRIPTIONS ...
$40 per year in print and online

VISIT ...
1105A Main St. (Route 122A), Holden

MAIL ...
P.O. Box 546, Holden, MA 01520

ADVERTISING DEADLINE ...
10 a.m. Mondays

CLASSIFIEDS DEADLINE ...
Noon Mondays

NEWS DEADLINE ...
Noon Mondays

Display Advertising

Sales Manager
Barbara Brown
508-829-5981

Classified and
Legal Advertising

Classified Manager
Carrie Arsenault
978-728-4302

News Tips
Opinions
Corrections

Editor
editor@thelandmark.com
508-829-5981, ext. 15
http://www.thelandmark.com/news/2006-05-25/Holden_News/054.html
www.thelandmark.com
crawl=CC-MAIN-2013-48
26337
application/http; msgtype=response
sha1:VCJFH33DVFLKQOHPEYNRV7GD2JEZXUWN
<urn:uuid:d06c8df1-31ba-4f25-9033-88df1cd4d727>
2013-12-09T10:04:45Z
173.231.129.26
sha1:I2ZFXNUXOOSXN4SCSOJDFAVRTEWYCKBA
<urn:uuid:87e87779-55f2-4de9-9a80-170873e82f0a>
http://www.thelandmark.com/news/2006-05-25/Holden_News/054.html
length
response
<urn:uuid:546b87e4-a67b-44ee-9011-462570a7fb6f>
robots: classic
hostname: ip-10-33-133-15.ec2.internal
software: Nutch 1.6 (CC)/CC WarcExport 1.0
isPartOf: CC-MAIN-2013-48
operator: CommonCrawl Admin
description: Wide crawl of the web with URLs provided by Blekko for Winter 2013
publisher: CommonCrawl
format: WARC File Format 1.0
conformsTo: http://bibnum.bnf.fr/WARC/WARC_ISO_28500_version1_latestdraft.pdf