It might be the only bookstore in Canada where you can look out the window and see horses, free-range hens, lambs, and a donkey. On July 3, in the small community of River John, Nova Scotia — with a population of fewer than 3,000 people — longtime children’s book author and literacy advocate Sheree Fitch will be opening a seasonal bookstore. Mabel Murple’s Book Shoppe & Dreamery is named after the author’s 1995 children’s book Mabel Murple, a tongue-twisting poem about a girl living in a purple world.
“It’s a dream. I was the little city kid growing up reading books about kids who lived in the country,” says Fitch, who grew up in New Brunswick. Fitch published her first book, Toes in My Nose: And Other Poems, 30 years ago, in 1987, and has since published dozens more, including several YA novels, a book of adult poetry, and an adult novel.
After living for years with her Québécois husband, Gilles Plante, in Washington, D.C. (where he worked for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation), the two of them moved to River John about six years ago. They bought a 99-acre parcel of land containing a farmhouse, an old grainery, and some birch trees and oak trees, with a dirt road running through the middle of it.
Plante, now retired, built a house on one side of the road, and on the other side, he is converting the old grainery into Mabel Murple’s Book Shoppe & Dreamery — and the old farmhouse will be turned into a replica of Mabel Murple’s purple world. Fitch plans to open the store annually from about July to September, welcoming visits from locals and from tourists driving along the Sunrise Trail on their way to Cape Breton. The shop has about 600 square feet of space, plus room outdoors for a few picnic tables, reading nooks, and an area for author readings and open mic nights.
“Now, people are going to have to bring clothespins if they don’t like the smell of manure, because it’s very fragrant,” she says. The idea is to have an experience in nature and imagination, where you can sit outside with a good book and hear stories outside. It’s a beautiful, natural habitat.”
On July 3, the shop’s opening day, Fitch will be hosting WordPlay, the children’s offshoot of Read by the Sea. The annual literary festival has been hosted in River John since 2000, and will bring visitors such as Marie-Louise Gay, creator of the Stella and Sam series, to the bookstore.
Meanwhile, Fitch is busy working on several new books this year. A 20th anniversary reissue of her book If You Could Wear My Sneakers (originally published by Doubleday Canada, now by Nimbus Publishing) came out in April in Canada, and will be available in the U.S. in October. The picture book, which won the Ontario Library Association’s Silver Birch Award when it first came out, is a collection of poems loosely based on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (which has never been ratified in the U.S., but was ratified in Canada in 1991).
Next up is Whispers of Mermaids and Wonderful Things (Nimbus, May), a collection of children’s poetry by Atlantic Canadian writers, illustrated by New Brunswick artist Lloyd Fitzgerald. It was edited by Fitch and early childhood educator Anne Hunt, and features more than 100 poems for young readers. Finally, Fitch has a book called Polly MacCauley’s Finest Divinest Wooliest Gift of All, which she describes as an “old-fashioned tale” set in River John, coming out in June from small Newfoundland-based publisher Running the Goat Press, with illustrations by Darka Erdelji.
Fitch says her goal with the shop is to promote the Atlantic Canadian publishing industry. Her store will carry adult fiction, nonfiction, and poetry—mostly from Atlantic authors and publishers—and a significant selection of Canadian children’s books. But don’t come expecting all the latest bestsellers, she warns.
“There are going to be a lot of backlist books,” Fitch says. “If people come here expecting to find that beach read that’s in the drugstore or in Chapters, they’re not going to find it here. I’ll send them somewhere else.”
