Children’s book illustrator Anne Hunter of Shaftsbury, Vt., is helping Connie Brooks ready the new children’s section of Battenkill Books prepare for the opening some time before Christmas. She painted this beautiful tree with an owl at the center, a squirrel high up on the ceiling, and a tiny fieldmouse down on the floor by the door.
Her work is gentle, beautiful and inspiring.
In Cambridge, where I live, community is taken seriously, and there is great pride in the fact that our beautiful bookstore – my bookstore, Battenkill Books – is expanding at a time when bookstores are supposed to be disappearing. No chance of that here, Battenkill, like many independent bookstores, is having something of a revival. People value independent bookstores and don’t want to lose them. The idea that Amazon would soon be the only place on earth buy books was a wake-up call to many people. There are many who do not want to live in a nation totally dominated by giant corporations who never know us or care about us.
Connie Brooks knows us and cares about us, and we return the favor here.She is the epitome of the new bookstore owner – a passionate reader but also a smart businessperson.
Battenkill Books is important to my town. A couple of months ago, we lost our independent pharmacy. Life goes on, the people at the Rite-Aid are courteous, helpful and efficient. They are taking good care of me. Bridget, our pharmacist, is looking for new things to do, I’m sure she will be successful.
Rural communities have been abandoned as unimportant and inefficient in the new global economy. But here, we still remember what people are for.
The wheel turns. My town does not ever quite. Soon, the kid’s section at Battenkill will open, and that will add so much to the community, the children here, and the idea of independent bookstore, a place so many kids came to in order to learn about books and stories and love both. Anne has a few more animals to paint, and then the children’s annex at Battenkill will be ready.
I see so many kid’s whose cultural lives revolve around pads, tablets and phones. I’m not clucking about that, each generation has the right to create it’s own culture, it doesn’t need to be the culture of their parents. But books are a timeless thing, children’s book spaces a special place in the minds and imaginations of so many. How wonderful they have such a warm and inviting place to come and enter the world of stories.
(P.S. You can order any book from anywhere by calling Battenkilll (518 677 2515) Books or visiting the store online. I will sign and personalize any book purchased through Battenkill. They take Paypal and credit cards and will ship anywhere in the world.)