Once again, we will NOT be buying books for cash or store credit in AUGUST.  It is the month to clean up, organize the shelves, and appreciate what is already here right?  If you want store credit, be sure to get your books in July 1-14, or hold on until September.  (Am I really saying September already?)  Thanks for your cooperation and understanding!

Summer for my family has always been the most full season of the year – between farm work, garden, and fair animals, my kids know to just quietly relish any down time without a whisper of being bored. They all enjoy reading books for pleasure rather than for school assignments, fishing, and cooking up something yummy, activities that are even more rare during school.   I know other families that  just dread the long days with out school to keep the kids busy.  Where ever you fall on that spectrum, we are stocked up on amazing activity books that offer up interesting, fun and easy activities for summer free time.  Come in and see what’s here while they last!

  Everyone can relate to bored kids in the back seat on a long road trip – solve that problem with the excellant Penny Whistle Traveling With Kids Book!  From strategies to prevent power struggles, to exercises, to road games, this book has it all.  It is a winner.    If your travels include a major river, or just tubing down the Owens, this book, River Wild,  has some scientific kid appropriate activities, as well as geography, history, and additional reading resources.  In no way is this dry reading, your family will enjoy building Huck Finn rafts and learning about beaver fur where ever you are this summer.

 While the cover looks dated, I think you will be impressed as I was with the scope of easy crafts and cooking projects related to birds in this book, Better Homes and Gardens Bird Buddies (plus there are more titles in the series).  Perfectly appropriate for back yard bird watchers or an afternoon with grandma after feeding the ducks at the park, you probably won’t even need a special trip to the store for supplies!  I thought there were some great party ideas here as well.    Toad Cottages and Shooting Stars is subtitled A Grandma’s Bag of Tricks, and I think all of us would dream of a grandma like author Sharon Lovejoy with this collection of activities up her sleeve!  From observing moths to making beans in a blanket, this book is beautiful, entertaining, and stuffed with fun ideas for nature oriented activities with kids.  Don’t pass it up if you are not a grandparent, it is of course perfect for anyone spending time with children this summer!

  Every kid should have an atlas to plan the ultimate trip, or to track an actual trip, or see where an older cousin is stationed in Japan.  Google maps just doesn’t have the same impact as leafing through pages of an atlas, just saying.  This Atlas of the World is from The Eyewitness series by DK Publishers, full of extra information and graphically gorgeous pages.  Eyewitness books are so good they can be appreciated by any age group.

  And lastly, one of my favorites with my children, A Child’s Seasonal Treasury from HearthSong.  This book covers all four seasons, not just summer, but like all HearthSong products, it captures the sweet essence of childhood in my opinion.  Poems, cooking activities, songs, crafts and sewing, multi-cultural and holiday stories – makes me want to go borrow a younger child when I thumb through this book again!  Okay, my kids never did cooperate very well with the finger plays, but maybe that borrowed child will… 

Of course there are more to choose from as well, just ask for help if you don’t see the shelf!  Happy Summer!

We have a nice selection of mule books now, some new and some used.  Plus the shelves are loaded with  Western and Local history that might appeal to Mule Days visitors!  Stop by after the Parade for some fun shopping.

The Inyo County Superintendent of Schools has chosen Into the Beautiful North by Luis Alberto Urrea as the 2013 Community Reads book of the year.  We have several new copies available now for a discounted price, (remember store credit can’t be used on new books), and we are working on acquiring some used copies as well.  This book was chosen “to celebrate the Latino community of Inyo County.”

Urrea is also the author of The Hummingbird’s Daughter, a beautifully written, critically acclaimed story of a magical young woman in Mexico.  Into the Beautiful North is also set in Mexico, but of a more contemporary young woman from a remote village who is determined to cross the border into the US to recruit men back to her town before it is overrun by drug dealers

The county wide activities feature some fun sounding cooking classes and a showing of the Magnificent Seven movie featured in the book, as well as a visit from the author himself on March 11.  More information is available from the Inyo County Office of Education. 

From the author’s website: 

Oh, and you pronounce it: oo-RAY-uh.

Check out the author’s website and blog at www.luisurrea.com

A very impartial judge, Orion picked the winning contestants in the Storybook Christmas Tree Gift Certificate Drawing today!  And for extra good news, we picked two winners.  Congratulations to Jarod, Suzanne Pfeil’s grandson, and Wendi for coming up with 10 storybook/ornament links and winning the random drawing for $25 gift certificates.  Wendi found an Alice in Wonderland connection that had never occurred to me, and Jarod saw a link  to Nanny Mcfee which I have yet to discover!  It was fun to hear so many story interpretations – some were obvious but others entirely original and innovative.  I won’t give the list away in case we do the contest again, but I will undoubtedly have some new additions to the collection in any case. 

And next Christmas, I am determined to have more storytimes to read all my favorites again, even if it requires bribing children to come listen!

As a Christmas Eve shopping gem, pick up Gift Certificates for everyone on your list!  Fast, easy, convenient, and choices, choices, choices!

Someone you know interested in a new hobby but needs a nudge of encouragement?  With our prices on hobby and art books, you can nudge away!  Photography?  Making Sushi?  Italian Food?  Doll Collecting?  Sewing?  Woodworking?  Lots of fun stuff here, you know someone who would like a hobby book!

Now be honest, some of you do not think a used book is an appropriate gift.  Well, I am committed to showing you at LEAST 101 items in the store this month that would be absolutely wonderful gifts.  Some are used books, but we have even more to choose from.  I hope it inspires you to come in with your shopping list!

The first 15 items  on our gift suggestion list are a no-brainer.  Pick up a fine art giclee print or two by Robert Miller to please virtually anyone.  Unique and beautiful pencil and charcoal mountain scenes and trees, there are 15 to choose from.  If we run out, it will only take a few days to get your request filled.  We can also ship them for you if you wish!  Great idea right?

Our newest batch of brand new movies from PBS/BBC and Family Movies include great seasonal titles including the Madagascar Penguins in I Was a Penguin Zombie  at a bargain price of $6.99.  Who could pass that up?  In the Family category, we also have Ballet Shoes starring Emma Watson (of Hermione Granger fame), Lucy Boynton and Yasmin Paige; Dog Gone, a comedy starring a bunch of animals, French Stewart and Kevin Farley; the animated T.rex Tales from the PBS Dinosaur Train; another animated tale called Space Dogs; and another episode of the PBS Caillou series called Caillou at Play.  Good stuff for every age group.

For those baseball fans who can pull away from the Giants in the World Series, we have a Ken Burns PBS film called The Tenth Inning about the changes in the sport from 1992 to 2009.  Also from Ken Burns’ America series, we have Brooklyn Bridge and Statue of Liberty starring Lady Liberty herself.  From the classic Brit drama department, we have City of Vice, Season 1, starring Ian McDiarmid and Iain Glen, and Season 3 of the great Agatha Christie Poirot series.   (I kept a copy of Season 1 and Season 2 if you need to catch up!)  And finally, there is the musical Oliver!, winner of 6 Academy Awards including Best Picture! 

So stock up now for Christmas gifts or find something to watch on our longer, darker evenings.  Remember, each wave of movies goes back if not sold, so don’t wait to pick up a copy, it may be gone!

Here at the bookstore, we all feel fortunate to get regular visits from Robert Miller – he has gifted us prints over the years and shares his work in progress and talks about the trials and tribulations of getting a work to his desired finished product.  He is fun and an inspiration to us, and we feel like we know many of his works quite well.  So it was especially fun to hear the visitors, especially other artsits, at Robert’s reception last Saturday.  Why do we love Mist on Marsh Lake so much?  Oh yeah, it is  his use of gray values and the exceptional reflections in the water, so hard to do in pencil…  It was also fun to hear him discuss the locations and processes with such animation and enthusiasm, not that he ever lacks either, but in his words, “it recharged his batteries”.   Many guests echoed our feeling, that we can’t wait to see more work.  Thanks Bob, you recharge our batteries too.