Can we read? An announcement
Hear ye, hear ye
Hi.
Normally I don’t write to you on Fridays, but I wanted to drop in your inbox for a minute and let you know:
I’ve become an affiliate of Bookshop.org. This means that if you use my Bookshop.org storefront to order your books, I will get a 10% commission from your purchase. We all win: you get new books, we both support independent bookstores (you by giving them your dollars, me by asking you to buy from them instead of Amazon), I get a small amount of money to put towards more books to review for you.
You may be wondering: why, Sarah, are you doing this? (Or maybe not, but I am going to explain anyway.) I have been seriously considering changing the model of this newsletter to a paid subscription one (with some content available for free, but not all). I may yet do that in the future. But for right now, I would rather try this (and some other ideas that are still in embryonic stage).
I know it’s easy to order from Amazon. I do it all the time. And now, perhaps more than ever before, small businesses need the help of people everywhere, people just like you and me, people who are going to spend this money somewhere and can make different choices ridiculously easily, just by using a different website and maybe waiting like three more days for packages to arrive. Marlee Grace says we have to invest in the future we want to see. Will I never shop at Amazon again? Of course I will; I’m a mother with major decision fatigue, limited willpower, and zero patience for putting two small people in bulky winter coats in carseats yet again today to drive 25 flipping minutes to Target for melatonin gummies, warm leggings my obstinate four-year-old will actually wear, and an indoor-outdoor extension cord. But I will do my damndest to put my money where my mouth is (and my fingers are), thus: bookshop.org/shop/canweread
Is there anything else we get out of this? Yes! Bookshop.org has this awesome little feature where I can build booklists for you, which make it easy for me to offer some recommendations beyond what I cover here, as well as easy for you to find even more titles for the children in your life (or other people’s children — everyone needs gifts sometimes). Since Bookshop.org does not sell used books — my mainstay, 98% of the content of my bibliopurchases — I won’t be able to recommend anything out of print (and Bookshop.org isn’t perfect even with books that are in print — they don’t list a single Anna Hibiscus title, for instance, which is like, what’s wrong with you?) Them’s just the breaks here; I will work with it as best I can to build varied and useful booklists for you. (On the upside, this gives me a chance to recommended newer books that I might not necessarily fully review here.)
I’ve already created the following lists, which I will update as I determine titles to add, as well as add new lists for seasons and holidays, as I review books at those times:
Books for 3-12 months old
Books for 12-18 months old
Books for 2-year-olds
Books for 3-year-olds
Books for 4-year-olds
Books for 5-year-olds
Books for 6-year-olds
The best nursery rhymes
Books for baby showers
Books that are a pleasure to read aloud
Books for a beautiful goodnight
Books for kids in daycare
Books to sing aloud
Poetry books for kids
Resource books for raising readers
Again, to view these lists (and make purchases), head to my storefront.
Sarah, this annoys me. Cool. You never have to use my Bookshop affiliate link, you can ignore the disclaimers I’ll have to include whenever I mention it, you can even unsubscribe if you want (no hard feelings! Be free from the tyranny of your inbox!)
Done. Finished. If you have any questions about this (or anything else, of course), please hit reply and let’s chat.
Thanks for supporting this endeavor if you choose to do so. Thanks for reading this newsletter, either way.
✌️
Sarah