Like a Heart, a Bookshop

by Jennifer Murvin

The books wake up and stretch their spines. It’s morning at the bookshop, and early sunshine reaches through the windows to warm the books’ bright covers. On crisp new pages, words rustle about, bumping into each other, cozying next to drawings, paintings, photographs. Will someone read them today? Who will take them home?

Storybooks, cookbooks, art books, books bursting with suspense, books giggling with jokes, books that grow when you open them into sculpted paper leaping off the pages in shapes: castles, forests, dinosaurs, planets, pull this tiny string to open a secret door.

Morning at the bookshop is a poem of possibility.

The bookseller arrives and sings, “Good morning, books!” She turns on the lights, opens her computer, and fills the bookstore with music. A book dances a little too wildly and falls off the shelf.

Dancing is welcome in the morning at the bookshop.

Outside, a small family waits to come in. A child peers through the window, her fingers leaving small smudges on the glass. Her feet dance, too. Soon, she knows, the doors will open.

Click! The OPEN sign lights up with a small buzzing noise. A small bell rings as the door opens. A butterfly follows the family inside and finds its home on a book titled Local Flora. One parent winds her way to the History section. Another parent peeks nervously into Mysteries. One child, fingers stained with watercolors, travels to Arts and Crafts.

The other child, the one with dancing feet, keeps to the main aisle for now, paused like the moment before an exhale. So many books! Where to begin?

The bookseller sings, “Welcome! Welcome to the bookshop!”

The child with dancing feet dances her feet to Chapter Books. She wants a series because she doesn’t ever want a book to end. She looks for a shelf filled with books of matching covers, a shelf promising her a summer of book after book after book after book.

The child wants an endless story.

The spines stretch again, this time to tell the child to choose them. She runs her fingers across the books, feeling their bumpy edges, singing the titles out loud.

Instead of choosing a book herself, she will let the book choose her.

One parent asks the bookseller to recommend a favorite book. Sometimes, the bookseller will write little notes about her favorite books for her customers to read, to help them decide which book might become their new favorite. These notes are called “shelf talkers.” Of course, the shelves are already talking to each other about what they have been reading this weekend: one, a biography about Cleopatra, and another, a book about bees and beehives and honey. The shelves are very talkative, especially in the morning, and they have strong opinions, which makes sense considering they hold hundreds and hundreds of heavy books in their strong arms.

The bookseller recommends a book she knows almost by heart, which is also one of her favorite sayings: knowing a book by heart means it has become a part of you.

The child who is also an artist has chosen a book and is reading happily on the bean bag chair.

The child with dancing feet has a pile growing next to her, almost up to her waist. So many books! How will she choose?

The bookseller knows that to choose a book is like choosing a ticket to new world. A book is a way to grow our hearts. A book is a window to ourselves and the people around us. She watches the child with dancing feet. There is a universe in the bookstore made of tickets and windows for a lifetime for journeying.

 “Time to choose!” the parent calls. The child looks at her pile of possibilities, which has grown almost to her shoulder. The books wave their pages at her, doing their best to be noticed.

One book has only pictures and no words, letting the children fill in the story for themselves. In this way, this book is a different book for everyone, a different book every time.

One book is so funny, it once made a child snort milk out of his nose.

One book is so sweet, sweet enough to make a parent cry and another parent hand them a tissue.

One book is so strange, a child will think about it the rest of the day, even into their dreams, even when they are grown up far away from the book and have forgotten its name.

Today, the child with dancing feet has been chosen by a special book, the first in a series, a series about magical lands and fantastical creatures and musical new languages. The book shivers in the child’s hands. They will spend the summer together, and every summer after that, because the book knows, and also maybe the child, that certain books live inside you forever.

The child brings the book to the bookseller, who places a bookmark in its pages and hands it straight back to the child, because it is important to hold a book when you choose it, when it chooses you. It is important to hold the book to your chest, maybe to smell its fresh ink, its sweet paper, maybe write your name inside it.

The bookseller owns her bookshop because bookshops and libraries have always been for the bookseller places where she felt happy, safe, and inspired. If the bookseller can’t actually live in a book, owning a bookshop feels like maybe the next best thing.

She thinks, reading is like breathing. Reading is like the heart beating. One of the bookseller’s favorite writers, Emma Straub, who also owns a bookshop, said once, “A neighborhood without a bookstore is like a body without a heart.” Luckily for the bookseller’s neighborhood, this bookstore is here.

The child with the dancing feet has a new dancing partner made of words. Her family has chosen their own books, and together, they wave goodbye to the books and bookseller, whispering to the books they haven’t yet chosen, next time, next time.

In the quiet, the books relax into their pages. One will be chosen for today’s Storytime, which begins soon. A small bell rings as the door opens. The books flutter, shiver, showing off for a new reader, the words inside them calling for another story to begin.

The bookshop holds its breath.

Once upon a time, a bookshop.

Once upon a heart, a book.