BookCourt Bookstore, Brooklyn, NY

BookCourt, a great independent bookstore in Brooklyn, NY, will host my  first reading and signing of Hey, Rabbit! at the end of February (details later). As a client, I really love this bookstore, which after the recent expansion it's even more pleasant to visit.

They have a large and nice children's book department. Evelyn Pollins, who manages the kids' events there, was kind enough to answer a few questions for my blog.

Can you tell me a little bit about BookCourt? 

BookCourt was founded by Mary Gannett and Henry Zook in 1981. It started with just the front room at 163 Court Street. In 1990 they opened up the basement, and then 6 years later they moved into the space next door at 161 Court Street to make the double storefront most Cobble Hill residents are most familiar with. Just last year they opened the back room that we call "The Greenhouse," in reference to the flower shop greenhouse that had been out back until the room was built. The store is still run by Mary and Henry, now with the help of their son Zack. On any given day in the store you'll usually see at least one of the Gannett/Zook clan around, especially since Mary and Zack both still live above the store.


There is a big Barnes & Noble just a block away. Does that influence your business in any way?

BookCourt fills a niche in the Cobble Hill community that Barnes & Noble hasn't really encroached on that much, thankfully. Our customers are people who love Brooklyn and love supporting local businesses in general, and they come here to get a sense a community that you can't get when you walk into a national chain store. I spend a good chunk of my day just talking to customers and recommending books. People come here because they need to find a gift for an 8-year-old who's already read everything, or they want to know what to read on a long plane ride. We're here when you have an idea of what you want, but haven't decided yet. Everyone who works here reads constantly and loves talking about books. I'm sure many Barnes & Noble employees are the same (I was once one of them), but that's not why you go there. In fact, when I worked there I almost never got asked for my opinion on books, much to my frustration. People come to BookCourt for the experience.

What about you? How did you end up working with books and kids?

I was a voracious reader as a child, like many kids. As I grew up, though, the books I'd read in elementary school remained my favorites. I had a hard time finding books for teenagers and adults that captivated me the way children's books did. Madeline L'Engle once said "If I have something that is too difficult for adults to swallow, then I will write it in a book for children," and I think she's right. The most universal and complicated topics are tackled in kids books because kids have a mind open enough to really grapple with them. So I kept coming back to my favorite middle-reader novels for escape in high school and college. I then went on to become a teacher so I could have an excuse to read kids books more often. I got my Master's in Education from the University of Chicago and taught 4th grade on the south side of Chicago for 3 years, so I got to learn all about all the wonderful new books that have come out since I was a kid, and I learned a lot about pairing kids with books. A year and a half ago I left teaching and came to New York in search of a job in museum education and thought I could work in a bookstore in the meantime. That meantime turned into this, which I can't complain about one bit. One of the other great things about independent bookstores (and independent businesses in general) is they are so open to suggestions and willing to try new things, so when I said I
wanted to have a story time, the owners were happy to oblige. Then when I wanted to get back to working with middle-grade kids and start our Young Reader Book Club: "Go to it!" And from there it just seemed natural for me to dive in a little deeper and start helping Zack, who books our general store events, by bringing in more kids' authors.

Let's talk then about the kids' events at Book Court. 

Kids' events at BookCourt are a relatively new thing. There were always kids' events here and there at the store, maybe one every couple of months, but until recently it hasn't been something we actively sought out. When we opened the "greenhouse" room a year ago we moved the children's books out of
their tiny room in the back of the store out into the wide-open storefront part of the 161 half of the building, and with the help of the wonderful ever-expanding families of Cobble Hill, kids' books have become a huge part of the store, so we've made children's events a bigger part of the store, too.

Because the children's event series is kind of in its infancy, we're letting our local authors really shape it. Events happen nearly every Sunday at 11 and sometimes more events will be sprinkled in on weekday evenings, in addition to our StoryTime with Jon Samson and CoCreative Music every Tuesday at 11 am. Sunday events are all about the authors and celebrating their new titles. They usually read their book and take questions from the audience, and some illustrators even do demonstrations. The events are relatively informal, and families pile in on rugs, our couch, and chairs around the author to share the stories. Our aim is to both introduce some families to new authors and bring the author's current fans together. We have some great local authors coming in January: Cathleen Davitt Bell will be sharing her middle-reader novel, Slipping with our Young Reader Book Club on January 20th and Kirsten and Carin Bramsen will be here on January 24th with their book The Yellow Tutu. Our Winter events schedule is coming together now and events will be going up on our website, BookCourt.org, as they are confirmed.

Can you mention your favorite picture books, old and new?

Oh goodness, there are too many. As a kid my favorite books were probably Leo Lionni's.  

Let's Make Rabbits and Tico and the Golden Wings stand out especially. There's a complexity to his stories that don't exist in a lot of picture books (Vivian Paley's book The Girl with the Brown Crayon does such an amazing job of talking about how kids respond to his work). As a teacher I loved reading Patricia Polacco with my students. There is just so much to explore and talk about in her work, it's incredible. She sits in a weird spot in the picture book world, where her stories really need to be read to older kids, kids who have moved away from picture books for the most part. I like that she bridges that gap.

As a bookseller I am always recommending Oliver Jeffers, Iggy Peck Architect, and Amy Krouse Rosenthal and Jen Corace's books Little Hoot, Little Pea, and Little Oink. All these books have adorable, gorgeous illustrations and funny, quirky stories that I think adults have as much fun reading as the kids do.

And lastly, I love collecting vintage picture books, mostly from the 60s and 70s. Chronicle has reprinted many of Ann and Paul Rand's gorgeous books Sparkle and Spin and I Know a Lot of Things, among others. Most of my other favorites are still out of print though.

Most people don't know that the
Newberry Award-Winning author Ellen Raskin (best known for The Westing Game) was a book designer and illustrator before she wrote children's novels. Her work has a lot of thick lines and bright colors, but also a ton of detail. Spectacles plays with illustration by showing what a little girl sees without her glasses, and then what's really there. The hippo riding a giraffe on the cover of Silly Songs and Sad will just blow your mind. And lately I've been trying to get my hands on everything John Alcorn has ever illustrated. Books! and Writing!, both illustrated by him and written by Murray McCain, are perfect examples classic 60s design but made for kids. So much fun to look at.

Anything else you want to add?

Thanks for supporting BookCourt! We're still here and thriving because of this community that has embraced us so fully.