Bookseller and champion of diverse books Jewell Stoddard, who co-founded one of the first children’s-only independent bookstores in the U.S., died March 10 at her home in Virginia. She was 92.
Stoddard grew up as both a nature lover and a book lover in South Carolina. After high school, she was determined to attend a racially integrated college, and she headed to Washington, D.C., where she earned a B.A. in English Literature from American University.
By 1968, Stoddard was living in suburban D.C. and took a position teaching third and fourth grade at the independent, progressive Green Acres School in North Bethesda, Md. When she and three of her colleagues—Charlotte Berman, Helen “Greenie” Neuberg, and Pamela Sacks—decided to leave the school in the mid 1970s, they sought a new way to channel their experiences by working with children and books. In September 1977, they opened Cheshire Cat Children’s Books on Connecticut Avenue just south of Chevy Chase Circle in Washington, D.C. First Daughter Amy Carter was among the opening-day customers. “We insisted on staying together and providing an educational service,” Stoddard told the Washington Post in a 1981 article about how the store was an instant success.
She operated Cheshire Cat until 1999 when she closed the store and moved, with her staff, to become the children’s buyer at indie bookstore Politics & Prose, located just down the street. Stoddard retired from the store in 2013, at 80.
Valerie Lewis, former co-owner of esteemed children’s bookstore Hicklebee’s in San Jose, Calif., knew Stoddard as someone who brought great passion to industry committee work over the years. She said, “I had a great deal of respect for Jewell as she raised the bar in what we should expect of books published for children and for the need for diversity in children’s publishing.”
