Where it started…

As a child I loved to play with dolls, ride bikes and play with friends, but my favorite thing to do was set up my “bookstore” in our family room and sell books to invisible customers.

Fortunately, my family had a good collection that I could arrange and sell.  My grandfather Bishop ( in the picture on this post) worked on his farm during the day and read every evening, often with me beside him reading too.   As I got older, my love of books grew and so did my desire to have a real store.  The details in my imagination changed over time, but the concept stayed the same, a comfortable, safe, happy space where we can all relax and just breathe.

Many of us love reading.  We love the excitement of opening a new book with the expectation of where we’ll go, the characters that will come to life and the images authors create that will always stay with us.  For me this started at a young age and as I moved from those early readers to Nancy Drew books, Little House on the Prairie and the Boxcar Children and then to classics like The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe and To Kill a Mockingbird love grew to a passion.  Loving books and what they give us has always been part of my life.  As we open Downtown Books, I hope to share that love with others who are book-obsessed and help a new generation discover that books really are magic.

I can’t wait to see old friends and meet new ones.  Everyone is welcome in Downtown Books.