A funny thing happened on the way to the new bookstore: I
tripped over a page!
A funny thing happened on the way to the new bookstore: I tripped over a page! Despite the downturn in the economy, Gilroy is exploding with new business. We have the new party store on Third Street (An Affair to Remember); Sewing Machines, Tovar’s Pottery Imports, Edith’s Jewelry and Imports, the new plus-size clothing store (Fashion Venus),” a new ice cream and yogurt store “Sweet Retreat,” and soon to come will be The Gilroy Noodle House, all located near the DMV; the new New Age store on Wellburn (Spirit of the Earth) is located just next to the Village Car Wash – but most exciting of all is the new “The Wize Owl” bookstore, owned by locals Michele and Duane Campbell, located at First Street and Santa Teresa.
“A told B, and B told C, ‘I’ll meet you at the top of the coconut tree.’ ‘Whee!’ said D to E F G, ‘I’ll beat you to the top of the coconut tree.’ Chicka chicka boom boom! Will there be enough room?”
How can a child not be hooked by a book for learning their ABC’s that starts like that (“Chicka Chicka abc,” by Bill Martin Jr.), or with a book with this opening line: “If you give a pig a pancake …” (by Laura Numeroff). You’ve just got to know what happens next.
Although I didn’t spot several of my current favorites, such as “When Pigasso Met Mootisse,” “Feng Shui For Dummies,” or “The Bad Hair Book” (the worst hair styles collected from beauty salons around the world), Michele assures me that the store is happy to take special orders. She has taken a hundred special orders for books already. I was pleased to see one of my favorite Japanese children’s books, “Everyone Poops,” by Taro Gomi. Here we learn that “birds do it, bees do it, kids with bended knees do it.” Education is the great equalizer, and kids learn that they are like everyone and everything in the world around them, so there’s no need to worry. I was laughing so much in the back of the bookstore when I first read it that an employee came to see if I was alright.
Michele also stocks greats like “Big Pig on a Dig,” “The Grouchy Ladybug,” “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs?,” “My Rotten Redheaded Older Brother,” and “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.” In the religion section you can find everything from “The Jesus Sutras,” a book on rediscovering the lost scrolls of Taoist Christianity, to Jerry Garcia’s beautifully illustrated “Amazing Grace,” to a book jacket resembling an aluminum can with a pop top that asks, “Thirsty for something real? The Bible may be old, but so are the ideas of Plato, Aristotle, and Socrates. Real wisdom is timeless.” Or maybe “The Bitch in the House” is more your speed, a book in which 26 women tell the real truth about sex, solitude, work, motherhood and marriage.
When a huge oak tree was felled up in the hills on El Matador by stormy weather, Michele asked the owners for part of it – and when it dries out enough, it will be installed in the children’s corner of the bookstore as a treehouse. Currently, there are story readers for kids on Tuesdays at 10:30 a.m; all ages are welcome. Saturday story readings will start soon as well. The top priority of this bookstore is serving the community, so we will shape what this store becomes in many ways by our participation and feedback to Michele and her seven employees. She plans to have a lot of in-store events, such as book signings and speakers. Her own recent talk telling the tale of how it took nearly two years of hard work and research to take the bookstore from dream to reality was very inspiring.
At the recent Theodore A. Brett book signing, I met this notable Gilroy teacher and pun master, author of such books as “Don’t Book a Judge By His Cover” and “Punning for Your Life.” As we wined and dined during the grand opening, we listened to fiddle and cello tunes (the * size cello is played like a bass guitar, thus its nickname: the celltar) by a band with the interesting name Morpeth Rant (named for an old fiddle tune). Chatting with John Cooper, sales manager of C & N Tractors, I learned that he was the one who helped store many boxes of books for The Wize Owl as they were coming in, and he joked with us that he will soon hold his own book signing, for a book entitled, “Scandinavian Humor – The Myth.”
With the lack of a local bookstore and the convenience of the internet, some of us have forsaken the simple joys of browsing in a bookstore, the pleasure of discovering books we didn’t know we wanted to read, the texture and feel of the new book, the relaxation of paging through beautiful illustrations, the fun of the treasure hunt to find the perfect book to fit the mood we’re in, and the instant gratification of being able to curl up and start reading that book as soon as we find it. In any case, The Wize Owl is a “wize” place to visit. The title of Ted Brett’s 1/27 letter to the editor said it all:
“Hallelujah! There’s a bookstore in Gilroy at last.”
