Children's booksellers across UK report solid sales after reopening

The first week of bookshops reopening after lockdown was like “Christmas with bells on” for children’s booksellers, as young readers flocked to independents to restock their shelves.

Octavia Karavia opened the doors of Octavia’s Bookshop in Cirencester to customers on 12th April, and said the first week of business was “amazing”. “People had saved their orders from lockdown, because they had refused to go online and use Amazon, so when they came to us they bought in bulk! The schools that have accounts with us could have gone online but they wanted to come and use us, too.”

Many of the customers coming through the doors still had Christmas book vouchers, or money they had been given to spend on books, meaning trading was incredibly busy. “I would describe it as mega,” said Karavia. “Like Christmas with bells on.”

Dan Ross, co-owner of Storysmith Books in Bristol, noticed that his customers, too, had saved their book tokens for their first in-person visit, and realised that people were coming to the bookshop for the first time after discovering his shop’s website during lockdown.

The Edinburgh Bookshop’s Mari Moser said children and their parents have been really keen (and more so than usual) for recommendations about great books to read, pointing out that spreading word of children’s books was one of the biggest challenges during lockdown. “Adult books are covered in the media but children’s books aren’t in the same way, so when people can’t browse, it’s hard for them to know what they want to buy. People just want new books. It is so joyful being back in.”

Sanchita Basu De Sarkar, who owns The Children’s Bookshop in Muswell Hill, said: “Seeing the community enjoying browsing has been wonderful for me. The conversations, the chatting… physically interacting with the books is so important for the young ones.”

The books that are flying off the shelves differed depending on the shop. Nic Bottomley of Mr B’s Emporium in Bath said graphic novels for both children and teenagers are popular, as is Nicola Skinner’s Starboard. Karavia is hand-selling Circus Maximus by Annalise Grey and The Last Bear by Hannah Gold, while De Sarkar is championing the shortlist for the recent Jhalak Prize, along with books by Zadie Smith and Jonathan Stroud.

At Chicken and Frog in Essex, customers want books about starting school but also books that offer complete escapism: they want to be transported elsewhere, said owner Natasha Radford. At Moon Lane Books in south London, books about school are also in demand, as are funny books, said staffer Nikki Rosengarten.

“We’re also going back to titles that came out between January and April, such as [B B Alston’s] Amari and the Night Brothers, to make sure kids are excited about those as well,” she said. “There is a lot of awakening around Earth matters and Black Lives Matter, and people are looking for books for new babies in the family, too.”

When it comes to doing events around books, the owners are taking a “wait and see” approach. Ross has already welcomed illustrator Emily Fox, who created a window display around Fabio the World’s Greatest Detective (Bloomsbury), but Ross has not yet decided when he will back to hosting two events for children every month.

Radford has started up her tuition business, and will restart writing clubs this month, but hasn’t booked any authors for events, and Moser will “probably” restart her children’s book clubs as online events. Rosengarten has a full schedule of events planned up until Christmas, but is keen on running a hybrid online/in-person model in the future. “So many schools can’t afford to pay for authors to come in or are off the beaten track, so we are working on providing virtual events,” she said. “Moon Lane TV will be carrying on as normal.”

Moon Lane Books has been offering customers personal shopping experiences during the pandemic, and Rosengarten said they are also thinking about continuing to offer this as an option because “customers love having bookshops to themselves and we know we can make sales”.

Karavia is planning on doing events with Ben Miller and Daisy May Cooper, who both live locally, but wants to wait until people can mix (and feel confident in mixing) freely. As she pointed out: “We would love to do more, but I want to wait until it’s truly safe and fun. It’s not fun if you’re telling people not to touch things all the time.”

All of the bookshops said sales did slow down after the first week of reopening, because children went back to school, but reported that business is still steady.

Bottomley said: “Business has levelled and is in line with expectations, but it’s so nice to have people back. When we reopened last year everyone was in a huge rush and it was difficult to give customers time and attention. It’s much nicer this time around.”