Link-Mad Monday: White Rabbit Edition

As in, "no time to say hello, goodbye..." so this will be a short one.

Actually, it's also the name of the first independent bookstore I ever fell in love with: a children's bookstore in San Diego, California where Stephen Kellogg signed my copy of his latest Pinkerton book and drew a little picture. Sadly, I've been told that the White Rabbit Children's Bookstore is no more, but there are a lot more great children's stores out there carrying the banner. Check out the website of the Association of Booksellers for Children for some of the best, and a glimpse at what's happening in children's bookselling.

- Bookstore of the week: Full Circle Books in Oklahoma City, OK -- thanks to "quiche" for the link. (I really am going to add all of these bookstores to my links list -- I just have to find a free hour to do the HTML cutting and pasting...)

-- Paul Constant of Seattle online newspaper The Stranger had a rough time at BEA -- sounds like he partied a lot harder than I did. His take on the conference is a little snarky, but pretty funny, and the description of those last night parties isn't too far off. Sigh -- another alternative paper I'll need to make time to read...

-- I'm excited about Robert Gray (i.e. Fresh Eyes Now) writing for Shelf Awareness, especially since his first article is about bookstore websites, just as we're thinking about improving our website.

So here's the reader question for the day: what's your favorite independent bookstore website, and why? I don't mean the website of your favorite bookstore -- I mean the website you find most useful, that gives you what you want in an attractive and distinctive way. (I admit I stole the idea from Bookseller Chick -- check out her blog for a similar discussion about author websites.)

Back on Wednesday with a report on our Emerging Leaders Night Out -- see you on the other side!

Comments

Anonymous said…
Whoa, Jessica, cool!

So I followed the link to Constant's BEA write-up for The Stranger, and he's talking about attending an African-American Lit panel discussion, and one of the panelists mentions a book called "Po Man's Child" -- Constant remarks, "I've never heard of [it], and I'm sure that 95 percent of other white bookstore employees haven't heard of [it] either."

Po Man's Child, a novel by Marci Blackman, was published by Manic D Press in 2000 and won a bunch of awards including the ALA's Stonewall Award and the Firecracker Award for Fiction. It was picked up by QPBC and went into a couple of printings. And we are SO happy to know that mention of it by a BEA panelist "set nearly every head in the room to nodding," and that Constant mentioned it again in his article (even as an illustration of his ignorance).

DC to Seattle to NYC to SF and back again -- thanks!

xo
Jennifer Joseph
Manic D Press
San Francisco
9:44 PM
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