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.