In 1975, Betty Takeuchi opened San Marino Toy and Book Shoppe in San Marino, Calif., helping guide generations of children’s booksellers and readers during a historic period of growth for the industry. Throughout her 45-year career, the pioneering bookseller deliberately kept things old-fashioned at her store, with handwritten tags, giftwrap, and an offline inventory system.
Takeuchi helped found the Association of Booksellers for Children in 1985 at the American Booksellers Association convention in San Francisco. At the height of the ABC’s influence, the group counted about 600 members. Those numbers declined over recent years as the bookselling industry evolved, and by November 2010, the ABC merged into the ABA, counting just 250 members compared to the boom days of the 1980s. Read more in this PW feature.
This past January, Takeuchi shuttered her store and retired. However, shortly after the closure, local patrons Kelley and Andy Carpiac swooped in to bring their favorite bookstore back to life. The store will reopen in April, in the same location, once the new owners finish refreshing the stock and getting the store ready for its grand re-opening.
PW caught up with Takeuchi as she heads into retirement, looking back at her many years in the children’s bookselling business.
PW: What were the biggest challenges you tackled over the course of your bookselling career?
Takeuchi: Over the years, the biggest challenges were big box stores and online shopping. Also, our children don’t seem to have as much time as they used to have. Now there are sports, tutoring, and all the other things after school. We used to have tremendous author signings and other activities in our store. Those seem to have all gone by the wayside because children seem to be busy every single minute of every single day.
PW: What was the community of children’s booksellers like during the early days of the ABC?
It was just amazing. Everybody shared and the publishers were so supportive. We didn’t have any money, but these publishers would always help.
Whenever there was a convention, they would always support our dinner. And we had dinners with up to a thousand people back then, wherever ABA was being held that year. It was absolutely incredible. They would help us put on these wonderful dinners and we would have speakers and party favors.
The publishers realized that it was a fabulous way for them to get their books into the hands of booksellers. They knew that children’s booksellers hand-sold their products and that was very difficult with all the chain stores that were proliferating back then. You couldn’t just put a book on the shelf and think that it was going to sell. With children’s books, hand-selling has always been the only way to do it.
PW: What was it like in children’s bookstores back then?
In the 1980s, Jim Trelease released The Read-Aloud Handbook and everything just took off from that point. Libraries and schools, everybody wanted to get in on that movement. Everyone realized how important reading was. We saw a huge surge in authors and illustrators being toured during that period of time.
We called ourselves the missionaries because we so believed in what we were doing. If someone walked into our store, we’d say, “Buy The Read-Aloud Handbook, buy three books to go along with it, and then go to your library!” We were really insistent. Many of us spoke outside of our stores, at the libraries and at PTAs where they would listen to us.”
Everybody wanted to be a part of the movement and everybody wanted to help. The Library of Congress got behind us, and, in the 1990s several members of the ABC were invited to visit the White House and meet with Barbara Bush. We were able to spend the morning with her, and we discussed our mutual efforts in children’s literacy.
PW: How did you maintain an “old-fashioned” feeling at your store?
We didn’t change much in 45 years. We were never online and everything was just run through a cash register. Inventory control was all done in our heads. It was just the kind of place where everybody would come in the door and they would feel welcome and they would know there would be people there to help them.
I saw many of these people who I first met 45 years ago as children. I see their families, children, and grandchildren today. And even though the grandparents may be gone or have moved to other places, the children and grandchildren still come back because they want to show their children what they had when they grew up. It’s so special.
We always pride ourselves on customer service and customer satisfaction. My staff really takes pride in what they’re doing and in what the store has accomplished, and we certainly hope will continue to accomplish. My staff is staying on and the new owners are wonderful. They believe in our mission and they are going to carry it forward.
PW: How do you feel about the future of children’s bookselling?
I think it’s going to be done on a different scale, but we will continue to sell lots of children’s books, as long as we have all these generations that keep coming back to bookstores. There, you have someone show children’s books to you. Someone to tell you why they liked them.
Customers will come in looking for a book for a certain age and theme, and we can put a book in their hands.
Amazon tries, but it’s not the same. It just isn’t the same.
