Happy New Year!

With the new year fast approaching we are preparing for some MAJOR changes at My Child's Bookshelf. Over the next couple of weeks our website is getting completely redesigned with added features like "Ratings & Reviews" and others that we will tell you more about as they are made active. We are excited about the changes, as they are a culmination of all the feedback we received from you throughout the year. We hope you like what we have in store because everything we do is with you, our customer and friend, in mind.

Thank you for making our first year in business so successful.

Have a Safe and Happy New Year and we will see you in 2012!

~Duane & Angie

Happy Thanksgiving!

We hope that everyone is having a great Thanksgiving celebrating with family and friends. We also hope that great deals are being found for those of you that are out shopping or shopping online! We have lots of new books that are being added daily. We are really excited about our American Girl series! We are expecting an order that will contain all of the American Girl series books. We have also created a clearance section! We have some more great changes in the works for the new year! We will keep everyone updated as things progress. Duane and Angie

200+ Friends Celebration--Day 5

Well, it's been a fun week-long celebration that wraps up tonight with one more chance to win in our $5.00-A-Day Store Credit Giveaway!
A quick Recap of our winners:
Monday-Lee Haijun
Tuesday-Ashley Bera
Wednesday-Sandy Delong
Thursday-Heather Person

As part of the celebration, we have also discounted a couple of categories. Our new Berenstain Bears category and our popular Magic Tree House category are both 10% Off.

Our Customer Loyalty Program always gives registered customers 5% back in Store Credit, but if you order this week and mention you have joined us on Facebook, you get 10% back!

Finally, you can get 25% Off of any book in our store when you use promo code: FB200.

Like our celebration, all of these offers end tonight, don't miss out!

We have had the opportunity to fill many orders this week. Some for our new friends and some for our returning friends, and we want to thank all of you for allowing us to serve you.

This whole week has been a lot of fun! We will have to celebrate again at 500! :D

~Duane Malek

200+ Friends Celebration--Day 2

     It was a busy day between facebook updates, customer's special requests, login problems and missing money on orders... All the twists and turns of small business, and We Love It!
     We gave away another $5.00 in Store Credit to one our most active facebook friends, Congratulations, Ashley Bera! All you have to do to enter is Register at www.MyChildsBookshelf.com and "Like" our entry status that we post for that day on facebook.
     As part of the celebration, we are doubling our Customer Loyalty Program to 10% back in Store Credit.  Just register on our website, order through Friday Oct. 28, 2011 and mention on your invoice at checkout that you follow us on facebook and we will double your reward to 10%!
     Last night we asked on facebook, what is you're child's favorite book or series. One of our friends said Berenstain Bears, so we created a new category in the store and we are going to discount the entire category later today!
     Again, Congratulations to Ahsley Bera!

~Duane Malek

200+ Friends Celebration---Day 1!

     We are excited have surpassed 200 friends on Facebook! Today is the first day of our celebration and we are going to start off with $5.00 in store credit giveaway! Then, we will giveaway another $5.00 each day through Friday Oct. 28, 2011. To be eligible all you have to do is comment on this post about how much you love My Child's Bookshelf, or anything else on your mind, we just need to know you would like to enter. Also, you have to be registered on our store website, so we can credit your account when you win!
      One winner will be randomly selected each night at 10:00 pm eastern. When you win we will email you and edit this post to add your name at the end.
      Oh! One other thing. All week long, if you are a registered customer and place an order, just add a note on your invoice that says you follow us on Facebook and you will receive 10% back in store credit instead of the usual 5%. Also, you will be entered to win a $10.00 store credit gift card to be given away on Sunday Oct. 30, 2011.
     Thanks for celebrating with us! Good Luck!

The winner of our first $5.00 giveaway: Lee Haijun. Congratulations!

American Girl Books!

We have been unpacking and listing American Girl books for the last week! Our most popular books seem to be the Molly collection but I am drawn to the Kaya collection of books. Kaya is a Native American girl. Even though I have two boys I find myself wanting to read about Kaya and her adventures. I love historical fiction, especially fiction about Native American tribes. I find their culture fascinating. Have any of you and your girls read the American Girl books? What are your favorites?

Inventory Updates

I have been busily working on inventory all weekend. Lots of new books are being ordered including American Girl, Step Into Reading, A to Z Mysteries, and many more. We should have lots of inventory updates in the weeks to come. We love to hear from our customers so if you are looking for something in particular please let us know.

Garrett's new favorite books are The Monster At The End of This Book and Another Monster At The End Of This Book. They are really cute Sesame Street books that my friend told me about. Garrett loves them!

We don't mail envelopes

     We do some things differently at our bookstore:

1. We list ATOS book levels and AR point values on all qualified books.
2. We sometimes give away store credit as a little "Thank You" to our customers.
3. We Don't Mail Envelopes. 

     When you buy a book from My Child's Bookshelf it will ALWAYS be shipped in a box. Period. No exceptions. 

     Why does it matter what our books are shipped in? Because we care about our customers and our books.  Boxes are more expensive than envelopes and weigh more, so they cost a little more to ship, but it's worth it. We have received books from places such as eBay, Random House and others that arrived in envelopes and were damaged. The problem is NOT the source, it's the shipping process. We hand our package (your order) to a person that puts it in a bin. Then it gets sorted, loaded, unloaded, sorted, loaded, unloaded... over and over again until it arrives to you. Envelopes, and their contents, don't stand much of a chance of arriving without damage. We have received so many damaged books in envelopes that we cringe when a book is delivered in one. We decided from day one not to use envelopes at our store, and experience has proven that to be a wise decision. We wrap every book in paper, place it in a box and cushion it with paper or bubble wrap. This is no guarantee that your order won't get damaged, but it greatly increases the odds. We have shipped hundreds of books and can proudly say, we have never had a damage complaint, Not One. So, whether you order 1 book or 10, your order will arrive wrapped and in a box.

     What does all this mean as far as shipping charges? Our customers have several shipping options, but most often they choose USPS Media Mail. This is how our shipping charges are calculated: 

Media Mail costs $2.41 for up to 1 pound and an additional $0.41 for every additional pound. The total weight of your order is calculated at checkout and assigned a price based on that formula. We add $1.50 in handling charges to that to cover the price of the box, packing materials, shipping labels, etc. $1.50 doesn't really cover all of our expenses, but we are committed to keeping the cost to our customers as low as possible without jeopardizing the quality of our product or service.

     Hopefully this all helps you understand why, when you put a $3.00 book in your cart, it costs $3.91 for shipping. We know it doesn't make it any easier to swallow at the time of checkout and you may even choose not to complete your purchase. But please, rest assured, we do everything we can to keep our prices low and, more importantly, our customers happy.

 ~Duane Malek

We are on the right track with AR!

I think Josh is on track now with his AR levels and the right books to select for him! He finished The Haunted Mask and took his test. He made a 90% and he was quite proud of himself. We high-fived each other! :) He has moved on to the Summer of the Sea Serpent which is one of the Merlin Mission books in The Magic Tree House series. I love this series because the AR levels have increased through the series so your child can continue to enjoy these great books even as they are becoming more fluent readers and need something more difficult to challenge them.

Accelerated Reader Books

One of the biggest challenges for us as a parents this school year has been trying to help Josh find the right AR books to read. He reads on a 3.8 to 5.8 reading level. Even though he can read up to a 5.8 Duane and I feel that he is not ready to read that high of a level due to the length of the books and subject matter. We are encouraging him to try and pick books in the 3.8 range right now and work his way up to the higher level books. Currently he is reading Goosebumps and looking forward to reading some of the Merlin Missions from the Magic Tree House series. Josh and I frequetly look at My Child's Bookshelf website because I am able to pull up the books that are within the 3.5-3.9 book range and allow him to select the one he would like to read next.
-Angie

He is reading this book:

Back to School!

I am enjoying being back at school with my speech and language students. I feel like I have some really challenging activities for them to do. I love giving them activities to participate in that make them think and problem solve. Today we read a short paragraph describing a football. They got all of the attention to detail questions right but only one of them could tell me that it was a football. It seems like an easy thing, but sometimes what you think should be obvious isn't. When I am reading with one of the boys I always ask them questions about the story or about a word that I am not sure they know. Reading to your child should be enjoyable, but I love when I feel like it was a teachable moment!

The Kingdom Keepers: Disney After Dark

   Joshua and I always read a book together ever since he was a baby. Even though he can read now, it is something that we have always enjoyed doing together. We just finished reading The Kingdom Keepers: Disney After Dark. It was a great book that we both really enjoyed reading. When we were done Josh asked whether there was another one.
   It is a very interesting concept that Ridley Pearson chose to write about. There are four kids who have had holographic characters based on them in The Magic Kingdom who guide guests with information about the park and events taking place that day. The main character is a boy named Finn. When he and the other kids go to sleep at night their subconscious crosses over into the park. They are given a mission by a man named Wayne who is one of the Disney Imagineers. The kids come up against classic villians like the pirates from the Pirates of the Carribean ride and Maleficent, the witch from Sleeping Beauty.
   This book is very well written and I enjoyed reading it as an adult as well. If you and your kids are Disney fans this is a cool book with places and characters you will remember from your trip to The Magic Kingdom.
-Angie Malek

Chrysanthemum

I have been sitting here putting the book information into our inventory when this book caught my eye. I have heard of Chrysanthemum but since I have two boys, I have never read it. As I was putting in the information about the book into our system I decided to read it. It is a really cute book about a mouse who loves her name which is Chrysanthemum. When she goes to school the kids start making fun of her name so she goes home every day hating her name. The kids meet their music teacher whose name happens to be Delphinium and she talks about how much she loves the name Chrysanthemum. That day Chrysanthemum goes home loving her name. I fell in love with the message behind this book. Kids will be or are already back in school and this is the perfect book to read with them whether you are a teacher or a parent. I know I used the word "name" a lot in this post but that is the whole point of the book. It is definitely one to check out.
-Angie Malek

AR Books for Back to School

     With school starting up soon it's time to start thinking about AR (Accelerated Reader)* books. We have a variety of AR books for your little boy or girl of any age. When we first discussed opening a bookstore, the whole premise was to be a convenient place for parents and teachers to shop for AR books. That's why we list the ATOS* book level and AR point value on every qualified book we have. To our knowledge, we are the only bookstore you will find that provides this information.
     We soon learned that people were interested in more than just AR and so our inventory has changed and grown to include more homeschool, resource and board books. But AR is still the seed that started My Child's Bookshelf. We invite you to browse our selection and use the information we provide as you decide what books to buy for your child for the upcoming school year.
-Duane Malek
*AR, ATOS & Accelerated Reader are registered trademarks of Renaissance Learning, Inc.  

Book Review: Disney Cars Read-Along Storybook and CD

     Our 3 year old, Garrett, LOVES his Cars Read-Along Storybook and CD. He will get it off of his bookshelf and bring it into the living room so he can "read" to us. We pop the cd into our dvd player and it's Cars in surround sound! He makes sure everyone is quiet and following along as he turns the pages when he hears the "chime" signal. It's adorable to watch him as he concentrates to turn the page at just the right time.
     When we gave it to him I wasn't sure he would be able to follow along and turn the pages, but after I showed him a couple of pages he picked up on the chime, took the book and ran the show! We are thrilled with this and other Read-Along books we carry! Right  now we have 5 different titles in stock, but quantities are limited. If you have a 3 or 4 year old I think they will enjoy having a book that they can "read" all by themselves. I know our little one does. :)
-Duane Malek

Interact with us!

Angie and I have started this blog as a way for us to interact with customers, parents, teachers, bloggers and anyone else that loves children's books. We will review books from our store that our kids have read or that we have read to them. We will try to give some ideas of how you can use children's books as a resource for teaching (such as Angie's post yesterday). Share with us books that your kids love! Tell us what you think about our bookstore, good or bad, we want to know what's on your mind. Bloggers, feel free to post links to your own blog or anything else that you think is relevant to children's books. As always, thank you for your interest in My Child's Bookshelf!
-Duane Malek

Almost time to go back to school!

I am preparing for my first day back at work on August 1st. My room is decorated and organized. I am working on a couple of books to read to my students that have vocabulary in them that I can teach them through literature. For my younger elementary school students we will be reading Arthur's Chicken Pox by Marc Brown. My older elementary school students and I will be reading Beware the Werepup by Julie Sykes. My oldest son read it and said it was a great book. I don't think that it has hit Josh that he will be starting third grade next week. Won't he be surprised! If you are a teacher, what is your favorite book to read to your students at the beginning of a new school year? If you are a parent, what book(s) are you reading to your children right now?