booksinckids's blog

Know Your Bookseller! Diana at the Mountain View store

Diana graduated from UCLA with a masters in library and information sciences, and now she can help you shop for children's books at Books Inc. in Mountain View! That is, when she's not working at the library, or teaching community college online library research classes, or pouring wine at the Cooper Garron Vineyard. Her favorite food is apple pie and her favorite muppet is Fozzie Bear, and her favorite book store is Books Inc. Obviously.

Part 8 of Nine Lessons from a Wyverary Governouresse by Cat Valente

That's right; Part 8. Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 9 of the short story Nine Lessons from a Wyverary Governesse are strewn about the internet in a literary treasure hunt. Each part is exclusive to those who host it, and the author has made the super cool decision to only post parts of her story on websites for independent bookstores and public libraries! You can read the introduction to this here, and check out your chance to meet the author, Cat Valente at our Mountain View store here!

8. On Science in Fairyland

How do you feel about Science, children?

I hope you are on good terms with it, that you have it over to tea at least every other week. Science is an excellent conversationalist, and much prized in Fairyland. In Pandemonium, the capital of all our merry land, Scientists have a tower all to themselves, called Groangyre. There they can have tea as much as they like while inventing and studying marvelous things like Moving Pictures, Electricks, the Carriageless Horse, Blueology, Lunar Travel, the Hyper Toadstool Transfer Protocol (by which you can leave quite long messages with the mushrooms and they will carry them anywhere you please via underground fungal network), and the Three Q’s: Quiet Physicks, Questing Physicks, Queer Physicks (these being the study of the Unseen and Unheard, the Mechanicks of Narrative and People Who Can’t Leave Well Enough Alone, and Things What Make No Good Sense).

I think you’ll agree all of that sounds quite good. 

The Prioress of Groangyre Tower is Belinda Cabbage, Empress of the White Coats, Quarterback of the Municipal Quantumball Team and Champion Crossword Solver. She causes most of the explosions you’ll see blossoming out of the tower on the hour, nice and regular. I mention her because she has been very occasionally known to take on apprentices. Sometimes these apprentices do very well, like Dr. Erasmus Jane Fallow, one of our premier alchemists. Sometimes they merely break local QB records and in the process cause two bakeries and a letterpress shoppe to vanish, as in the case of the famous and unfortunate Simon Snowpea, who can’t get a loaf of bread to save his life these days.

The line for the apprenticeship forms a charming spring ritual, stretching form Pandemonium all the way to her sister city, Sticks. So if you feel you know your sums and long division, know how to work a lilyscope, and are proof against fire, acid, boiling, and spells of disintegration, I suggest you line up early.

Know Your Bookseller! Colleen at the Palo Alto store

Colleen has fourteen (FOURTEEN!) years of experience as a children's bookseller. Colleen also started the awesome tween book club, Book Busters, which meets the second Tuesday of every month. She is an avid Brandon Mull fan, as she clearly illustrates in her video, and can help you find the best that the fantasy genre has to offer. Totally top secret tip that is not at all diluted by being on the internet: if you want to ingratiate yourself to Colleen, tell her she's like Meg Ryan from You've Got Mail. America Online chatting may be a thing of yesterday, but expertise is for life. Colleen is on maternity leave from Books Inc.

Know Your Bookseller! Andy at the Berkeley store

Each Books Inc. store has their own kids' lit specialist. But Berkeley has a Kid's Lit WIZARD. After graduating from UC Davis with a degree in English, Andy figured that the only way to move on would be to attend a gradschool of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Being that those are hard to come by, Andy did at least five Google searches to find the right school for him. And since Hogwarts was all booked up, Andy settled on a nice parochial wizard's academy in upstate California, where he studied children's literature alchemy, wizardry and ninja-ry. That's right. Ninja-ry. Now he uses his finely honed skills at our Berkeley location, where he is also the story teller for their Teatime for Tots storytime, every Thursday at 4pm.
 

Know Your Bookseller! (Illy)Anna at Chestnut Street

Illyanna (Anna for short) is the kids' expert at Books Inc. Chestnut Street. Anna's a recent graduate from Grinell College, a long time ballerina and was raised by anteaters in darkest Peru. Or somewhere in the midwest. The details get fuzzy. She will also answer to Princess Buttercup, and yes that reference comes from a book not just from the movie, it was an awesome book before it was an awesome movie, and no, I don't think this is getting off topic at all. When Anna grows up, she aspires to be a children's librarian. Or an anteater.

Read more reviews of awesome kids books by Anna

Know Your Bookseller! Summer at Laurel Village

We're super happy to have Summer on our team-- Summer is a freelance children's book editor who spent a decade at Tricycle Press and Chronicle Books. She also runs the children and teen programming for LitQuake, San Francisco's favorite annual literary festival and is the Secretary for the Northern California Children's Bookseller Association. You can get Summer's expert help at Books Inc. Laurel Village.



Read more reviews by Summer

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