Annie Kuhn, a bookseller at The Briar Patch in Bangor, Maine, reports on strong sales for a series of chewable books, which customers are literally eating up.
One surprise for us has been the popularity of the Indestructibles line of baby books from Workman, which is unlike anything else I’ve seen on the market. We sell out of these titles very quickly each time we get a new shipment in. When the first titles came out in December 2009, we thought they were a nice novelty to add to our baby section. These truly indestructible, completely non-toxic books look like they’re made of lightweight paper. In contrast to heavy board books, which disintegrate and break off bits as they are chewed on, these books can be chewed and sucked on, wrinkled and crunched, rolled up and packed with ease—and can even be washed in a dishwasher or washing machine if they become too soiled. No wonder they’ve become best sellers for us!
The series was created by Amy Pixton, a mother of triplets, and her artist mother-in-law, Kaaren Pixton, and the first titles included Wiggle! March!, Flutter! Fly! and Creep! Crawl!. These nature-themed concept books are wordless and beautifully illustrated with colorful cut paper artwork.Subsequent titles expanded the line with familiar nursery rhymes placed in international settings. Illustrator Jonas Sickler puts Humpty Dumpty on the Great Wall of China and Old MacDonald Had a Farm in the mountains of Bolivia. These wordless books allow imaginative storytelling or playing seek-and-find with the pictures, but the traditional verse is printed on the back cover if the reader needs a prompt.
To date there are 12 titles in the series and we’ve sold them to parents, daycare providers, preschools, and more. It feels good to spend some time thinking about one of our successes in this challenging business period.
