Where Have all the Books Gone?

My nephew has just celebrated his first birthday and christening.  Being a lover of children's picture books, I decided I wanted to get him a really nice picture book.  You know, something from the CBCA winners list from the last year or two.  There have, after all been some great books.  The Terrible Plop, Isabella's Garden, Can I Cuddle the Moon and The Flying Orchestra are the ones that come to mind immediately.  I love the stories.  I love the pictures.  I especially love the ones written in rhyme, because that is my weakness in children's fiction.  Dr Seuss, Lynley Dodd and Mem Fox are always going to give you some good rhyming reading as well as great pictures.

Miss Mischief and I headed off to see what we could find.  What we discovered is that there are no bookshops at all now, at Fountain Gate.  Only Kmart, Target and Big W sell books in any quantity, but children's literature is not high on their list of titles to be up-to-date with.  I was devastated at this discovery.  I ended up buying Baby Wombat's Week ~ the updated version of Diary of a Baby Wombat, which I have on my shelf and adore.  A quirky story about a baby Aussie wombat and infuses some basic literacy and maths concepts in a tangible way for little people to understand.

I wonder though, where does one go to actually look at and feel and buy books like the ones I was after?  If we can't go to a shop anymore, how to you run out the day before a birthday event to pick up the story you had in mind for the special little person in your life?  Do good bookshops exist anymore.

All these questions reminded me of the Meg Ryan & Tom Hanks movie You've Got Mail, where Meg's character owns a children's bookshop.  I want one of those 'just around the corner' from me!  A quirky little shop brimming with beautiful children's books.  Surely that's a peek into Heaven?