Surprise Books in a Box

A Surprise Box of Books may be one of our favorite things to put together for you at The Story Shop. As booksellers, we love to recommend books; there is little like the joy of putting beloved titles into reader’s hands. A Surprise Box of Books is book recommendations par excellence.

• Choose the amount you wish to spend: $50, $75, $100, or $150

• In the notes section at the check out submission page: Tell us the age range of the child(ren) who are receiving the box

• Tell us what they like to read: themes, specific titles they’ve enjoyed, genres, etc.

• We will pull and send titles similar to those you’ve listed that we are sure the recipients will love

A Surprise Box of Books is:

• a one time purchase (though you can certainly set up a subscription if you would like)

• an easy gift, we do most of the work!

• a great surprise which equals tons of fun

Below are examples of a surprise box of books based around the theme of adventure! These examples are separated by age range: picture book, middle grade, and young adult. But you may mix and match if you want to send one box to friends, siblings, or cousins who are different ages!

An Ode to Poetry Month

“I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me,
And what can be the use of him is more than I can see.
He is very, very like me from the heels up to the head;
And I see him jump before me, when I jump into my bed.”

— “My Shadow,” Robert Louis Stevenson

          I can’t help but hear my grandfather’s voice in my head as I read this snippet. It’s a widely known children’s verse, the first stanza of a longer poem from Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1885 collection, A Child’s Garden of Verses.

     "My Shadow" is a poem that’s been read aloud countless times in countless settings, so beloved to children and adults alike that most people probably can’t remember where they heard it first. Countless voices have given it life over the last century and a half. Still, in my readings, the voice is always my grandfather’s.

Poetry helps us remember. 

     I should mention that my grandfather passed away when I was six years old. As one would expect, I don’t remember many details about him. But poetry has always been the clearest way for me to remember his voice.

     This is the power of a poem - it stays with us. Poems have an appeal similar to aphorisms (concise statements of general truth, like “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”): they move an idea from point A to point B via a catchy soundbite. They are portable. We can show poems off on command, both impressing our friends and skipping the long process of trying to put our own words to a thought. 

     (At least, this is the joy I find in memorizing poems. Nerdy? For sure. But it sure makes me look like I know more than I do.)

Poems grow with us as we age.

          I would argue, though, that unlike coffee-cup slogans or t-shirt catch phrases, poems grow with us as we age. As children, a poem can speak to us on a certain level, and then a different level as adolescents, different still as young adults, and so on. Clearly, they spoke to my grandfather over the course of his entire life, ever his companion, just like Stevenson’s little shadow.

          What better way, then, to teach our children to love words and books? What better way to ensure that their lives are interwoven with reading than to give them words they can be proud to remember, books that remind them of all the love and joy they know and have yet to discover?

Poetry from connections.

          Poetry blossoms from connections we make between the world and ourselves, and I can’t think of a better way to teach our children empathy and creativity than to show them these connections and explore them together. And, with poetry as with all books, reading to our children can remind us of what grounded us most when we were their age, and what can ground us still. 

From all of us at The Story Shop,

Happy National Poetry Month!

The Joys of Rereading

There are all sorts of readers in the world. Escapists, discoverers, arm-chair travelers, and so on. Readers may find themselves in one, or several, of these groups.

There is one small subgroup of readers, however, that you either belong to or you don't: rereaders.

Those who are not rereaders may be baffled that some spend precious minutes that could be used to read something new perusing a book for a second, or even fifteenth, time. Rereaders may feel just as baffled that others wouldn't want to immerse themselves in a beloved or remarkable story multiple times.

But with all of the books out there, who has the time to reread?!?

Rereading usually happens around the holidays (oh, the nostalgia of the holidays) or when a reader is in a certain mood. Rereading also helps readers out of reading slumps.

But still, why reread? There are other ways to cure reading slumps, other ways for a new book to satisfy a mood.

There is nothing like the joy of reading a book for the first time; however, first-read thrills can't always compete with the joys found in a well-loved story. There is joy in the comfort of revisiting a story, joy in better understanding a book, and joy in deep familiarity with a world found between the pages.

Those who reread for comfort simply feel at home in a certain book's world. These are the books we return to when we're stressed out, overwhelmed (or underwhelmed), or just need a lift. They help us grapple with disappointed hopes or difficult times. They remind us that the world contains both sorrow and beauty, pain and joy.

Those who reread for understanding reread in order to grasp the nuance or details of a book. These books usually hold a significant place in the life of the reader. They've caused paradigm shifts or made the reader look at the world in a wholly new way. These kinds of revelations, of course, require deeper thought and a careful understanding of the journey on which these books take the reader.

Those who reread for familiarity can quote from these beloved books, they know them so well. People who are fans of a book can recite the most famous parts, but those with true familiarity can call up lines or whole passages for fitting situations or as a way to connect with others who share the same love for that text. 

What do you reread and why?