The Timeless Magic of Books of Wonder: Connecting Books to Readers with Peter Glassman

Step into Books of Wonder, a New York City bookstore where every reader has a story. This iconic bookstore has sparked joy in young readers for 45 years. It inspired the Tom Hanks/Meg Ryan film You've Got Mail. In this conversation with founder Peter Glassman, we explore how Books of Wonder became a cherished destination for children's literature enthusiasts, fostering a vibrant community that celebrates the art of storytelling. Just in time for the holidays, Peter provides book recommendations sure to spark joy in readers of all ages.

Chapters:

00:40:  Origin 

Learn about Peter's lifelong love for books and how his bookstore became a staple in New York's literary landscape.

05:37:  Evolution

Discover how Books of Wonder transformed into a hub for authors, illustrators, and readers.

13:52:  Secret Sauce 

The staff shares a passion for helping kids connect to books. Explore strategies for fostering a love of reading.

18:40:  Power

Explore how diverse literature helps foster empathy and imagination. 

24:54 Peter's Holiday Book Recommendations 

Just in time for the holidays, Peter shares some of his favorite new releases. 

• The Experiment (Rebecca Stead)
• The Invisible Parade (Leigh Bardugo/John Picacio)
• Snoop (Gordon Korman)
• The Incorruptibles (Laura Magaziner)
• The Library of Unruly Treasures (Jeanne Birdsall)
• Nic Blake and the Remarkables: The Book of Anansi (Angie Thomas)
• Extraordinary Quests for Amateur Witches (Kayla Cottingham)
• The Last Tiger (Brad Riew/Julie Riew)

0:36:11 Finding Hope In Dark Times

Links

• Books of Wonder webpage
• Follow Books of Wonder on Instagram, Facebook, and BlueSky

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

SPEAKER_01 0:00

The guest you are about to meet today has my dream job. He is the founder and owner of Books of Wonder, which in my opinion is one of the most beautiful, magical bookstores, not just in New York City, but on the face of the planet. I have had a love affair with this bookstore for years, and Peter Glassman is one of the dearest, sweetest people you will ever meet. I am so happy to welcome you to today's Adventures in Learning, and stay tuned and join us for a cozy conversation. Hi. Wonder, Curiosity, Connection. Where will your adventures take you? I'm Dr. Diane, and thank you for joining me on today's episode of Adventures in Learning. Peter, welcome to the show. I am so happy to have you on the show. It was years before I realized that your bookstore was the model for You've Got Mail. I loved that movie in the 90s, and I always thought, ooh, that bookstore reminds me a lot of Books of Wonder, and it never put two and two together. Can you tell us a little bit about what led you to start a bookstore? I've always loved books.

SPEAKER_00 1:15

As a child, my parents read to me constantly when I was too young to read for myself. Ironically, I'm one of three children. I'm the only one who didn't teach himself to read. My brother and sister both taught themselves to read. I did not, but I took to it like a fish to water in first grade. And I really very clearly remember reading Half Magic by Edward Eager and thinking this was the most wonderful story. And then when I read Knight's Castle, the sequel, which is about the children of two of the children in Half Magic. Because Half Magic takes place in the 20s and Knight's Castle takes place in the 50s. And there's an exchange between the mother, who was the child happy adventure in the first book with her daughter about magic and such things. And the the mother says something that is if you've read the book, the first book is like, oh, you get what she's saying. And the daughter thinks her mother's being ridiculous. He goes, Oh, mother, honestly. And of course, you laugh. But it was that sense of being on the inside, being not, you know, when as a kid, all so often adults are talking over you. They're talking about things you don't understand. You're not in on the joke. You're not in on what they're talking about. And here I was an insight. I had I had been empowered by reading a book. And that was such a magic feeling for me. And I just loved it. And it it, you know, I then went on to read all of Edward Eager's books, and then I moved on to more and more stories, and I just fell in love with reading. You know, I discovered because of the Edward Eager books, I discovered he Nespit and discovered it Guardian Children's Literature, which is the whole thing. And I just, you know, always loved reading. Everyone knew I was a book nut. When I was bar Mitzfit at the age of 13, I must have received over a dozen gift certificates to bookstores from my friends because they're all their, they all knew that Peter loved books, and they told their mom that's what they should get me. And, you know, the day I turned 14, which is legal working age and where I grew up, I went to the local, two local bookstores. We had two in the little town I grew up in and asked them both for jobs. And they both said no, I was too young. But the next year at 15, I got my first job at a bookstore. Wow. And fell in love with that. And then five years later, at the age of 20, I opened Books of Wonder.

SPEAKER_01 3:45

Which is incredible because that's so much work. And this bookstore has spanned now, I would guess, parents, their children, maybe even their children's children starting to come in. What does it take to start a bookstore and then maintain that dream over that many years in a place like New York City?

SPEAKER_00 4:07

Well, of course, New York City has changed so much. I mean, we're about to celebrate on September 2nd will be the 45th anniversary, the day we opened the doors. And over those 45 years, New York has changed so amazingly. I mean, our first little store was a hole in the wall, about the same size as the office I work at of now. And it was $400 a month rent. So it wasn't that big a risk, you know. I mean, it was, but it wasn't. I mean, $400 is a lot more in 1980 than it is today, but still. And it, you know, it was just I think you have to have a vision. You have to know what you what you want. And ultimately, if you're lucky like I was, what you want to offer to people and what they want are aligned. I can't think of anything more awful than running a bookstore filled with books you don't love. Yes. I mean, you know, the store for years when the store was smaller, I didn't carry anything I didn't love because the store was small enough that I could just limit it to that. And I would always say, you know, if we don't carry a book, I'm not saying it's not a good book. It just isn't a book I particularly I I don't have room for it, or it has isn't one of my absolute favorites. And, you know, as the stores got bigger over the years, you know, we've been able to change that. I mean, we're now in our sixth location in Manhattan. So, you know, it has grown over the years.

SPEAKER_01 5:33

And you started out with an interest in antique books and The Wizard of Oz. And that's sort of his, as you said, as the store has grown, that has also morphed. Can you tell us a little bit about that as well?

SPEAKER_00 5:46

Well, when I was about 17 years old, I think, I stumbled across a copy of a book called Bibliographia Asiana. And it was a guide to identifying first editions of the Osbook. And I had never even thought about identifying first editions before that. And it explained how the book had changed books had changed over the various printings over the at that point, 78 years they had been in print. And it was fascinating to me. And I discovered that, you know, the copies I had read with all those black and white illustrations, all those illustrations were the original editions, but there was also color illustrations that I had never seen. And I got very excited about finding them and seeing them. And I started to explore the world of rare books and found it fascinating. It was sort of like being it was a way to combine being a book lover with being a detective, and that was really special. And so I fell in love with that. I had been working in a bookstore in Manhattan and I decided to leave. I was their buyer for children's books, I was their bookkeeper, I'd done all kinds of things for them. And I decided to leave and get a job at an antiquarian bookseller and learn about that at the business. Excuse me. And I went and got a job there, worked there for several months, learned what I needed to learn. Um, I had already been starting to collect books and buy books to put aside the idea of opening my own antiquarian bookstore. You know, I was I was 20 years old and I had been, you know, working in bookstores for five years, and that was a quarter of my life. So it seemed to me like a very long time, and I thought, oh, I've done new books. Now I want to do something different. I want to do old and rare. And so when I first thought about opening a bookstore, it was just going to be antique books. And it was gonna be all children's books and science fiction and fantasy, my two great loves. And I'm sorry. And any rate, I went and it doesn't want to let me turn it off. Anyway, I went and found this tiny little store. We filled, we went and my late husband built all the bookcases. He was very good with this with tools in his hands, and he and we filled the we unloaded all the books and I had four empty shelves. And I'm like, I don't want empty shelves. It didn't even occur to me to face the books out. Don't ask me why. And but I knew that three blocks from my store was Bookazine, which was one of the major distributors of books to bookstores in the Northeast at the time. And I could just walk over there and pick out books I wanted to put on my shelves. So I went over there and picked out four shelves of my favorite books: Found Tollbooth, A Wriggland Time, Where the Wild Things Are, Crichter, you know, all uh obviously the Oz books, you know, and I just put those out just to fill the shelves. And people loved them. And the next thing I knew, I needed to add more shelves to bring in more new books. And then I decided, you know, people were responding much more to the children's books than they were the science fiction fantasy. So I ended up getting rid of the adult science fiction fantasy and just thinking all children's books, both at first it was half new books, half old and rare. But as the store grew, the old and rare, even though it continued to grow, the new books grew much quicker. Because obviously it's very easy to go out and order new books. Old and rare, you have to hunt for and search and do the research on each book. So it's you know, a bit more work involved. So it takes a little longer to grow that. But that's how we ended up being what we are. And we got very lucky that being in the West Village, we attracted a lot of authors and artists who either lived in the village or visited the village a lot. The author of The Cricket in Times Square, George Selden, lived a few blocks from the store. Shell Silverstein lived just down the block and would come in all the time and regale us with stories. He was a greatest thing. And other authors started to come by, and I had been very fortunate and met Madeline Langle on the training platform in Providence, Rhode Island, while I was at Brown University. And she had been up there lecturing, and I was going down to visit my future husband, who I was dating at the time, and she was going home, and we met on the platform and just easily became good friends. And that we were friends to the end of her life, bless her heart. One of the most amazing, wonderful, big-hearted people I've ever known in my life. And she was so good to me in the store. And many others' authors have been as well. I've always said Books of Wonder could not have survived in New York without the love and support of all the authors and artists who have been so generous doing events with us, getting, spending time at the store. And, you know, it continues to this day. And it's become, you know, it's so funny because now authors and artists will come to me and say, Oh, it's always been my dream to do an event at Books of Wonder. And I'm like, that's very sweet of you for just a book story, you know. But there are a lot of great book stories. But I'm glad you're happy to be here. But, you know, and it embarrassed me a little because, you know, I feel like I can't live up to that kind of expectation. But it is very sweet. And we love, you know, finding new authors and artists. And of course, one of the great joys has been how many amazing young people who've come to work for me have ended up becoming very successful authors and artists. We have two Caldecock medalists among our alumni, one Newberry medalist, and a lot of best-selling authors and artists. And it's just amazing. It's well over 20 people who have gone on to be very successful as authors and artists, as well as people who've gone on to be amazingly successful editors, art directors, and do all kinds of things in the publishing and the book industry, working with children's books. So that's very gratifying.

SPEAKER_01 11:51

So, in many ways, you've formed this community over the last 45 years where you've nurtured and provided sort of that same grounding that you got during that formative period from 15 to 20 when you were working in bookstores and learning everything you needed. You've given that back in so many different ways, helping other people.

SPEAKER_00 12:10

I have tried. And I've always tried to, you know, I was very lucky. The owner of the store I cut my teeth in, Lester Sinver, his name was. It was a bookstore that's no longer there, Cold Book World in West Poland, New Jersey. And Lester was amazingly good to me. He I was very curious. I had a million questions about how things were done and why they were done. You know, my father owned his own business, so I knew a bit about business. So I was curious to learn about, you know, what's the margin on this and how do you go better that? How do you make these decisions? And he was very generous in teaching me and explaining to me. And I just gobbled it all up. I thought it was so fascinating. And what that I became a buyer at the age of, I think, 16, started buying books for the science fiction fantasy section, the children's department, and learned how to sell just about anything. As you have to in a general bookstore. You can't just sell what you love, you have to sell everything. Which is kind of what which was the fun thing I discovered when I had my own store and I started adding books that I love was what when it had felt a little tedious ordering books I didn't care about to fill the shelves. Now that I was only ordering books I liked, and books I thought were good for kids, would good as in would make them excited about reading. Right. I I think the job of Books of Wonder is to make children love reading. I am not interested, you know. Obviously, if we can help them with a school project or whatever, we're happy to do that. But my goal is to make everyone discover that book, which makes them fall in love with reading, like I was lucky enough to.

SPEAKER_01 13:46

You know, and an example I can absolutely give of why supporting an indie bookstore like Books of Wonder versus the big box companies that, you know, just throw it all out there is I was in New York City a few years ago with my niece, who's dyslexic and a reluctant reader. And we had come into Books of Wonder. And her mom wanted to get her a book. And, you know, she was kind of, I don't want to go in. And you had a staff member who came up to her almost immediately, got down on her level, and was like, what are you interested in? And she was interested in graphic format. And so next thing I know, I look over and she's got a stack that is about 12 books high. She's sitting crisscross applesauce and she is reading through these books. And her mom wound up buying six because this staff member took the time to get to know my niece and figure out what books would be the perfect match. And so it made a huge difference because completely validated what she wanted to read, but then was able to also help her find authors she had never considered.

SPEAKER_00 14:52

Well, I've always said my my secret weapon is my staff. We only hire people who really know and love children's books. And they we hire them because they want to share their love of books with other people and they want to find the perfect book for each child. You know, we have occasionally the the aunt or uncle or cousin who comes in or just friend of the family and says, I don't know what to get them. I don't know, you know, I don't know what they read. And we'll be like, well, what do they like? What are they interested in? And what'll happen is, you know, we'll pick out a book or two and they'll go off the book, you know, hoping it's the right thing. They'll come back a few weeks later, they love that book. How did you know? That's fabulous. That's always very gratifying. And of course, the next thing we know, they're coming back with more nieces and nephews or whatever, and you know, and that's great because then we're we're reaching more kids, which is always the goal.

SPEAKER_01 15:53

Imagine a space where curiosity drives innovation, where empathy fuels collaboration, and where learning feels less like a task and more like an adventure. My message isn't about adding more to your plate, it's about changing how you see the plate entirely. I'm Dr. Diane Jackson Schnorr, and through the power of purposeful play, I equip leaders, educators, and organizations with the tools you need to unlock creative problem solving, deepen human connection, and build resistant ecosystems of empathy and innovation. Attendees will walk away not just inspired but empowered, with immediately usable strategies to spark curiosity in teams, to lead with empathy, and to infuse learning into their everyday cultures. You'll learn how play isn't child's work, it's the secret weapon of the world's most effective leaders and change makers. This is not a feel-good talk that fades by Monday morning, it's a movement. A shift in how we engage people, solve problems, and lead meaningful change. My talks and workshops are shaped by decades of experience in education and a transformative message that connects across sectors. Whether your audience is corporate, educational, or nonprofit, they'll leave ready to rethink what's possible, both personally and professionally. Because when we learn and lead through play, we don't just change organizations, we change the world. Check it out at drdianadventures.com. So I teach a class where I help, I teach a children's literature class where I help teachers and librarians fall in love with children's literature in all of the genres and really love introducing them, particularly to diverse children's literature, that they may not have considered. Books that aren't the ones that they grew up on, but are books that are powerful and wonderful for the diverse society we live in today. But I also try to get them to understand that just because a book is good for you doesn't necessarily mean it's going to be good for that kid. And so you need to be well read so that you understand possibilities. You've been doing this for so long. I'm wondering, do you have sort of a secret sauce that goes into deciding what makes a book good for books of wonder and or good for your readers?

SPEAKER_00 18:16

I'm sorry to say that it's mostly a gut level reaction. It's a if it's a book that makes me want to keep turning the pages. If it touches the inner child within me, which I'm lucky enough to still stay in touch with, maybe it's just because I've always been reading children's books. I mean, I'll I if I go to a you know a dinner party and it's not in the industry and people are talking about all these adult books they read, I'm lost because I don't know novels. I have no time for it. I've been too busy keeping up with all the children's books published each year. And I just, you know, it's mostly what I'm looking for is something that will excite the reader, make them want to read it back, and make them identify with the children in it. One of the greatest stories I ever heard was an author was talking about an a letter she got from a child who had watched a film of a book made from her book, and had said that they enjoyed the book so much more because when they were watching the film, they felt like they were an outside observer looking in. But when they were reading the book, they felt like they were taking the journey with the character, they were in the character's shoes, and that was wonderful. And it was just such when I realized that is the secret to books. Well, nothing I I love film, I love theater. I'm lucky enough to live in New York, and you know to use live theater, which is an amazing experience. And in many ways, I think live theater is the closest thing to uh reading that we get because both require the suspension of disbelief. When you open a book and read it, you know it's not actually happening, you know you're reading a story, but you suspend your disbelief and invest in the characters and invest in the story. When you're watching a film or TV, you can pretend like it's real, that it, you know, because it looks real. You know, maybe not an animated film, but even then you can yeah. When you're watching a a play or a musical on a stage, you know it's not really happening. I mean, it is happening, but it's not real. It's it's a you know, they're changing the sets, it's actors. But you invest yourself in it the same way you do with the book. So I've always felt theater is very similar to reading in that sense, and the investment in the being willing to suspend your disbelief and invest in what is in front of you. But in books, more than any other thing, you get you build empathy. Yes. Because you're tied to the characters in a way that nothing else is. You're hearing their thoughts, you're feeling their reactions, you're you're you're going through it with them in a much more intimate way than any other art form I can think of. And particularly for children, it is so important because let's face it, very few of us live uh in a in a in a situation where we are get exposed to the diversity that our world has around us. So through bookstore, we can go anywhere, anytime, any place, and meet anyone. And it's amazing. And it doesn't matter whether you want a fantasy novel with or a science fiction time travel or a mystery or a good biography. They're all great stories if they're told by the right people. I mean, we're having Alan Gratz in October, and Alan writes historical fiction, and it is amazing how invested you become in his characters and how alive he brings it for you. You know, and it it's I or last year we had were lucky enough to have Alice Hoffman come and talk and read and read from her butt and talk about the book she wrote about Anne's rank before she went into hiding. And you felt like you were on the journey with Anne, and it was so. Powerful and beautiful. And of course, listening to the author speak about their books and get asked questions by people who are really invested in knowing about the books is always wonderful. And the best thing of all is when we get the kids who to open up and ask questions because they always have the best questions.

SPEAKER_01 22:18

Absolutely. And that point you made about empathy is so important. We live in a world where empathy is being given a bad rap. And we're not understanding that the ability to be able to enter into somebody else's point of view is what allows us to be human. And books can open those doors in so many ways. And I hope that if there's families listening to this or teachers listening to this, that this gives them some armor to keep introducing those books even when they feel challenged.

SPEAKER_00 22:51

It's so important. It is so important. And also, it's so important that any child and every child feels recognized when they go into a library, into a classroom, into a bookstore, that there are books that they could say, oh, that could be me. I mean, yes, we want them to use their imaginations and identify with everyone. There should also be books that they think, oh, that could be me. And learning about other cultures and other people and other ways of living, and you know, and it's just it's such a joy, and it's it enriches us and expands our our ability to appreciate life.

SPEAKER_01 23:30

I agree. And it helps you to maintain that wonder, which is the basis of books of wonder.

SPEAKER_00 23:36

You know, and of course, it's also essential to a free society.

SPEAKER_01 23:40

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 23:41

You know, the uh the concept, you know, one of the basic, one of the the first amendment to the constitution was about guaranteeing freedom of thought, freedom of expression, and freedom of the press. Those don't do us any good if people aren't reading. If people aren't reading the press, if people aren't reading books, if people aren't reading new ideas, they're not getting them. Because there's only so much you can get out of a soundbite.

SPEAKER_01 24:06

Agreed. And so we need to spend more time, more time reading, less time on our devices, would be my uh my suggestion for the day.

SPEAKER_00 24:15

I I mean I'm not gonna say that there's no fun to be had on a device because first of all, no one will buy it if I say that.

SPEAKER_01 24:22

No, and I like my device too, but exactly.

SPEAKER_00 24:25

There's a there is certainly a convenience factor to the fact that anytime I'm lost, I could just pull out my phone and maps will show me where I am. But there is also there's nothing like reading. And in fact, whenever I go on vacation, my gift to myself is that every morning I start with a leisurely breakfast in about an hour and a half to two hours of reading. That to me is more unwinding and more joyful than anything else I can think to do.

SPEAKER_01 24:53

I like that sense of joy. So, Peter, as we're coming into the holiday season, what are some books that you think we should be looking out for?

SPEAKER_00 25:02

Oh, well, gosh, I am very excited. And you know, whenever people ask me this, my mind goes blank. And that's why, but I prefer to be on the sales floor where I can look at books, and that's how I remember things. But I am very excited about Rebecca Stance, the experiment. Just finished that, and it is brilliant, as all of Rebecca's books are. I think she's an amazing, amazing author. Very excited about that. A Bardugo, who is very known to fantasy NYA fans, and maybe to people who watch Shadow Abode on uh Netflix, has just done her first picture book. Really? And it's all about the day of the dead. And it's just beautiful and lyrical, and so and it's illustrated by oh god, I I don't want to mispronounce John's name without having it in front of me, but an amazing artist who is a major scientific fantasy artist. This is his first picture book as well, and it is an amazing picture book that everyone should, you know, see. It's called The Invisible Prince, and the artist's name is John Piccaccio, and his work, and I mean he and Lee have just created a work of art, and both lyrically and and visually, and it's just so exciting. Let's see, what else am I excited about? You know, oh Into the Magic Wild by Michelle Knutsen is wonderful fun. I am very excited about Gordon Cormann Snoop. It is just such a great adventure story and mystery, and and you know, it's just it's about well, I don't want to give anything away. It's just fabulous, you'll love it. Horror magazineers, the incorrigibles, if you like sort of magic and uh rebellious kids, and you know, and kids doing things that adults think they they're not old enough to do, you know, and interpret them the series. Splinter and Ash is really wonderful. It's it crosses is I love the fact that it uses atypical heroes. One is a girl who is physically challenged, the other, and and and therefore in this medieval world with the fantasy, she's thought maybe a little less of because, you know, and she has to, and she is not in any way less. And you you see that very quickly and start rooting for her. And then she ends up befriending and becoming friends with a young person who doesn't want to be thought of as a girl, who doesn't want to be thought of as a boy. They're not, they're just them. And it she doesn't make a big deal out of it. It's not some huge issue in the book, but it's just beautifully expressed and done, and it's really wonderful. It's called Splinter and Ash. I was really, I thought it was a lovely book that really was very exciting and full of adventure. And I I could I I know there's gonna be sequels, so I'm very excited to read that. But it also introduced us, you and me as a reader and anyone to ideas that you know some people get a little frightened of, and introduced a very, very in a very smooth human way, without judgment, without, oh, you have to you have to feel this way. It was more just this is the way it is for this person. And that was lovely. Now, one of my favorite new books for the summer was The Library of Unruly Treasures by Gene Bertzel. I just was so enchanted by this book. It is so lovely. Jean, in a letter that came with the advanced copy, has spoken about how it was her little a nod to her love of the borrowers as a young person. And I read it and I saw that immediately, but I saw also nods to several other books I love, including one that perhaps isn't as well known today, at least not in America, called The Return of the Twelves by Pauline Clark. It won the Carnegie Medal in the UK.

SPEAKER_01 29:03

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 29:04

And is a and it is just beautiful and lovely. But the Library of But again, you have, you know, if you if you don't have to know these books to enjoy the Library of Unruly Treasures, it is just so much fun and so exciting. And and of course, it for any because it is a library and it is about books and a book lover, anyone who loves books is going to identify it with it total. I'm very excited this fall. I haven't read the sequel yet because I haven't gotten an advanced copy, but I adored Angie Thomas's Nick Blake and the Remarkables. Yeah. An assestor prophecy, when that came out last year. And I am so looking forward to the sequel that's coming out this fall. Angie's an amazing author, and this was her first middle grade, and she just hit it out of the park. I mean, talk about rooting for a young character. You Nick is just, you want her to succeed. Yes. She's great. And then, you know, as a gay man, I grew up in a time where there was nothing for people like me to read when I was a teenager, having the feelings I was having for the first time. And there's a beautiful book coming out this fall called Extraordinary Quests for Amateur Witches, which is actually a sequel to Practical Rules for Cursed Witches, which I had not read, but I just went right to the extraordinary quests because someone recommended it. And I'm now going to go back and read the first one, but they don't, you don't have to read them in order, they stand separately completely. But it's wonderful, and it's a great fantasy quest and adventure. You can tell you see, I love fantasy. I can tell. But you know, um the beauty of this book was that there was just a very gentle romance between two young men, and it was handled very beautifully, very sweetly, and very really, very realistically. You know, it's it's it's not a fairy tale, it's a true story in that sense. True emotional. Yes. Marvelous book I read by a brother and sister writing together, Julia Roo and Brad Roo. I think that's how it's pronounced, R-I-E-W. I'm not 100% sure. I was unfortunately not here. I was away when they came to sign topics for us, but it's called The Last Tiger. And it was inspired by their parents who had to escape from Korea during the war and had some very difficult during the during the not during the Korean War, but during the occupation of the Chinese. Okay. In World War II and after. And it is a beautiful story, and it introduces you to Korean culture in the fantasy setting of sorts. It's not, you know, they're not trying to be completely realistic, but it's just wonderful, and it's a great exposure to a culture that a lot of people may not know. And it's it's it's you know, and it's always so exciting to discover these new cultures and things. And then I there are there is one adult book that I did read because it was written by one of my favorite children's writers, Louis Sacker. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 32:21

For grown-ups. Theoretically. Theoretically.

SPEAKER_00 32:24

I mean, I'm not a anyone over the age of 10 could read it and enjoy it. I mean, it is about someone who's an adult and it's from their adult perspective. But you know what? Kids have great imagination. I don't think they have any harder any more trouble identifying with a 40-year-old than they do with a with a 14-year-old. Sure. And it was just a wonderful, beautiful story as Lewis tends to write. So I'm very excited about all these books. And they're, you know, I'm always reading something new. Right now, I'm reading Summer Ghoul by Tracy Badua, which is wonderful. And it's about a kid who has is forced by his parents to spend three weeks in the summer away from his friends, which he's very upset about. The family goes away for three weeks, and he'd rather be home with his friends. He discovers that the room he claims in the house they've rented is haunted by another kid. And it's great. And it turns out the ghost expects him to be all freaked out, and you know, and he's trying to get rid of them because he doesn't want this kid in his room. And he's like, hey, I'm Filipino. My grandmother talks about ghosts all the time, and you know, and it's like, it's just so cool. And it's just again a great story, and it's uh again an introduction to a different culture, but he's also a very American kid, and it's wonderful to see how those, you know, how children in America grow up in different cultures and bring that to their American experience.

SPEAKER_01 33:50

Absolutely. Well, that's a great list to get us started.

SPEAKER_00 33:53

Getting yourself involved in the first few pages, she's got to involve pictures of the characters.

SPEAKER_01 33:58

Wonderful. Well, that is a fabulous list to get us started. And I know that you offer recommendations on the website as well. And folks can also come stop at the store and ask for recommendations and get some help finding the perfect book. So I'll put all of that information into our show notes.

unknown 34:16

Right.

SPEAKER_00 34:16

And I want to believe that many of you many of these authors either come to the store and sign their books or send us book plates signed by them that we offer with the books. You know, we want to we try and we also do virtual events for those who aren't in the New York area. So you should visit our website to learn about those. We love bringing authors and artists together with the people who love their books. We find that that's a great experience for everyone and something we like to encourage.

SPEAKER_01 34:41

Well, and you've certainly done a magical job with that over the years. You know, before we got on for this call, you were looking at the books I've got behind me. And I was saying I have the artist to artist book behind me that I got signed by all of the illustrators when you hosted the event to launch that book. And Ashley Bryan was a dear friend, which was sort of my draw for going to that particular event. I had done a children's literature conference in the middle of nowhere, Virginia, with a two, with a two-week-old baby. And Ashley, I was interviewing Lois Lowry on stage, and Ashley literally walked around holding my baby in the background, and it bonded us for the rest of our lives. But I had come for that, but there are so many events. And you recently had one for Barbara McClintock that I had come to, which was just a beautiful event because it was a tribute to Tommy DePala and to the artistry that is Barbara. And it's almost like when you show up for one of Peter's events, you get this lovely matchmaking opportunity to meet all of these other wonderful readers and writers. And it's a beautiful experience. So if you go to New York City, I'm gonna tell you put a visit to Books of Wonder on your top 10 list. So, Peter, last question for today. And I like to end with this for everybody. What currently brings you hope?

SPEAKER_00 36:02

Oh, the look on kids' faces when they come in excited about their next reading, about looking eagerly for that book, and just, you know, so excited to get that book they love. And when they share with me how excited they are about books, that gives me hope because that tells me that despite everyone saying that, oh, reading is, you know, the number of kids reading is dropping and all this, but you know, no one reads, blah, blah. It's not true. The book has been around for over 500 years. It is a magical art form. There is nothing as intuitive as the written word on paper. We absorb it into our minds and into our hearts and away like nothing else can, and we can't nothing else. And watching kids still fall in love with the same books I fell in love with really excites me. I mean, I love all the new books, as you can hear from what I talked about, but still, watching a child go nuts over where the wild things are, or frog and toad, or oh, uh Mike Mulligan and Steven. Yep, I remember that one went out. I love those books. Or Harold and the Purple Crayon. Yes. I mean, it just gives me such joy to see that these books are as universal as I felt they were when I read them.

SPEAKER_01 37:16

So that's wonderful. Well, Peter, thank you for joining us on today's Adventures in Learning Podcast. It has been such a joy to spend this time with you.

SPEAKER_00 37:26

I have a pleasure. Thank you for inviting me.

SPEAKER_01 37:28

You've been listening to the Adventures in Learning Podcast with your host, Dr. Diane. If you like what you're hearing, please subscribe, download, and let us know what you think, and please tell a friend. If you want the full show notes and the pictures, please go to drdianeadventures.com. We look forward to you joining us on our next adventure.