Spotlight on Bookstores: *Watchung Booksellers* in Montclair, NJ

Laurie Lico Albanese is a co-author of The Miracles of Prato, a historical novel involving a scandalous romance between a renowned Italian Renaissance painter and his muse.  It has been a hit with book groups, and with the paperback now available, has been placed on the Indie Next Summer ’10 Reading Group List!

I haven’t yet met Laurie, but felt an instant connection when I learned about her My Big Walk blog.  When you read her essay you’ll want to board a plane, jump in a car, lace up your walking shoes, or hop on a broom to visit with ….

… The Magic of a Local Bookseller

We didn’t have a bookstore in the town where I grew up but I could see our library from my house if I stood on the roof, something I was permitted to do once a year on July 4^th to watch the fireworks display. Everyone else oohed and ahhed about the fireworks and so did I, but all those books on the library shelves, all those stories to be told and heard, the lives to be shared – that’s what I dreamed about at night. That was magic, to me.

I lived in cities after graduating college, places ripe with libraries and bookstores of all kinds. In Chicago I met a man named Jim A___, whose father had been a bigwig in the publishing world. Jim told us that his father had arranged a credit account at their neighborhood bookstore when he was a boy, and all the A___ children had free reign to charge any book of their choice, one a week, all year long.

“Anything?” I asked Jim.

“Anything,” he nodded.

“Fifty-two books a year?”
Yup.

Such a luxury of privilege and trust (not to mention money) seemed not only un- imaginable to me, but a relic from the past, as well. Were there really neighborhood bookstores that offered such proximity, opportunity, freedom, and choice to children?

In 2001, when my children were 8- and 12-years-old, my husband and I bought an old Dutch colonial in Montclair, New Jersey, three blocks from Watchung Booksellers.

As a girl I’d been able to see the library from my house; now my children could ride their bicycles to Margot Sage-EL’s bookstore, browse the shelves, and make their own selections.

“Anything?” Melissa asked.

“Well maybe not anything,” I said, as I pressed some money into her palm.  “But just about anything.”

Laurie and Margot

Not only did Margot know my children by name, she knew their schools, their approximate grades, and their reading tastes as well. And she had the coziest, smartest, most inviting bookstore I’ve ever had the privilege to shop.

I’d come a long way from that girl on the rooftop, gazing at the library through the haze of July 4^th fireworks.  But I didn’t know just how lucky I was, or just how deep Margot’s “customers-are-family” credo might go, until the summer of the sixth Harry Potter book.

Everyone remembers the months of waiting, the excitement leading up to the release date, the breathless anticipation as wizards, witches, and mini-Harrys and Hermiones trekked hand-in-hand with mom and dad to the bookstore to get their hands on the embargoed books just one minute after the stroke of midnight.

My son John, especially, had reached that critical age – 11 – when he not only liked reading but he was actually excited about every new Harry Potter experience.

This time, though, there was glitch. Our family was scheduled to leave on a flight to Costa Rica at six o’clock on the morning of the Harry Potter and the Half-Book Prince release. Which meant we had to be in a car to the airport by four-thirty. And that meant there was no way we could be at a midnight book party.

“I’ll pay for the book before we leave,” I told John. “And we’ll pick it up as soon as we get home.”

It was the best I could do, and I did as promised. Naturally I chatted with Margot while I was carrying out my transaction: we talked about the trip, the book, the embargo, the excitement, and how wonderful it was that girls and boys were so excited to read the newest J.K. Rowling fantasy adventure. Margot was pretty excited about her midnight party plans, and I was, too.

She offered to drop off John’s book after the party so we’d have it for our trip.  It seemed like an awful lot to ask, and  –  under the circumstances (a midnight party, hundreds of books, cookies, give-aways, customers, cartons, cleanup and more) –  an easy thing to forget at the end of a long night.

I didn’t even tell John she’d offered. We went to bed (a little sad, at least on John’s part), woke up before dawn, scrambled with suitcases and coffee. When I opened the front door to wave for the car service, I tripped over a lump under my doormat.

It was the Harry Potter book. 

Margot Sage-EL may be a Muggle, but she’s a wizard in my eyes. And in John’s, too.