Themed Events

This story originally appeared in Children's Bookshelf on August 17, 2006 Sign up now!

by Judith Rosen, Children's Bookshelf -- Publishers Weekly, 8/17/2006

After running a successful St. Patrick’s Day event, which took children all over the store searching for leprechauns and a visit to a pot o’ gold as a reward for those who found all 10, Carol Chittenden, owner of Eight Cousins in Falmouth, Mass., and children’s book buyer for BookStream, has been looking for ways to create more authorless events.

“Any Barnes & Noble can do an event with Dora or Clifford,” Chittenden told Children’s Bookshelf. “But I’m pretty committed to inventing our own things.” For her, the best events are ongoing throughout the week, so that customers don’t have to worry about attending on a specific day or at a specific time. And they require a lot less staff time. “It’s not something that takes half an hour,” she says. “It takes two to five minutes to say, ‘Would you like to peek in the treasure chest?’ ”

Chittenden has been working on pairing the right activity with the right prize. During a recent Sudoku puzzle week, for example, the store offered a 1% discount on the next purchase for every square correctly filled in. Some children got as many as 47 squares correct, for a 47% discount. At a promotion for Ian Falconer’s Olivia Forms a Band, too many would-be drummers wanted to use the snare drum, which ended up taking a week-long time out. However, these are easily solved problems, Chittenden says, and don’t come close to outweighing what the events achieved, which is keeping kids busy so their parents or grandparents can shop.

Later this month Eight Cousins is planning a Game Night, where they share some of the new toys from Gamewright with their customers, and something involving food and counting for Bruce Goldstone’s Great Estimations (Holt). Prizes will probably include smaller discounts or $1 Read-a-Buck gift certificates for the store.