A Crazy Love for Reading and Books
My name is Ella-Roisin. I am nine years old and for the first two days of my summer holidays I worked at Stella Books bookshop with my grandma Theresa who works at the desk. You might know her if you’ve been for a little visit to Stella Books. Working in a bookshop sounds boring but if you have a crazy love for reading and books it is the most fun work experience you can get.
While I am there, I don’t just sit behind the desk having a cup of tea and biscuits although I do when I’m having a break. I’m actually up on my feet most of the time. I scan books, send emails and deal with people buying and selling books.
I also do the displays which are probably the highlight for me as the displays are one of the most important things, as everyone sees them when they walk past. I had to choose books from most of the categories that the bookshop has to offer. One of the categories is called 'Folio' and I couldn't just choose a random book from the
shelf. When you work at a bookshop you have to look for eye-catching covers and maybe an interesting book title. I found a Roald Dahl Folio with a strange but eye-catching cover, although Roald Dahl’s books are mostly for children this one was for adults only!
Now some people when they look at the window display, reverse and come into the bookshop when they were just going to walk past. And believe me when I say that seeing the thousands upon thousands of books that Stella and Roses have to offer there is no chance that you could walk past.
Working at the bookshop you get used to how much the books are, but even though I have worked there at least once every school holiday I still can’t help but be amazed at the amount of money people pay just for one book. One day I held a book which cost £850 !!!!
One of my favourite authors is Jacqueline Wilson and not only does the shop have a copy of one of her books it is also signed. If you didn’t know, a book that is signed by the author can cost more than a 'normal' copy of the book.
Stella Books is an antiquarian bookshop, so of course there are quite a lot of old books. The oldest book dates back to 1623 and is called The Historie of Great Britanie under the conquest of Romans, Saxons, Danes and Normans.
Lots of kids say they want to be grown-ups, if everyone knew how exciting and fun it is to work at the bookshop, then they’d all want to be adults as soon as they were born.
Working at the bookshop is so much fun because you nearly always get to chat and you are also always doing what you like! Although they get you working as hard as you do at school.
Now I have told you about the work I do, but what you don’t realise is the people upstairs do more work than the people at the desk do. They deal with the wide range of books that customers want to buy. When I am not thereJane who works upstairs will collect the orders from the desk but when I am there I run up the stairs and deliver the orders up to her.
All of the books at Stella and Rose's offer different experiences. There are quite a few strange books, but the strangest book is a normal size book all about potatoes. It goes by the name of The History of Potatoes and it’s all about different potatoes and their origins. HOW STRANGE!
As I have said this is an antiquarian bookshop so no wonder most of the books cost £10 or more but the most expensive book is The Tailor of Gloucester by Beatrix Potter which costs an astonishing £5980.00. One of the reasons this book costs so much is that it is a privately printed edition and only 500 copies were published.
If my friends came up to me in the playground and asked what I did in the summer holidays, I would tell them I worked at my Grandma’s bookshop! They would probably say it was no big deal, but they’d be wrong. I’d tell them how amazing it is to work there and they’d have a lot of trouble trying to shut me up! I’d say things like it’s a one in a million chance, (although that’s probably a bit of exaggeration, but it wouldn’t be far off) It’s just amazing!
Sonia the manager of Stella Books has a Hearing Dog called Onyx that is the cutest thing you will ever see. I love scratching her belly and stroking her when I take the orders upstairs to Jane.
I’m going to finish this off just by saying that working there teaches me so many skills, independence when I have to find books for the orders, maths when I’m counting up the money and tallying the customers at the end of the day and organisational skills when I have to help make sure that everything is done in time.
I hope you have liked hearing about what working at the bookshop and being a nine-year old is like and I can’t wait to know when I’m next allowed to work there.
Contributed by Ella-Roisin
(Published 1st Jan 2014)
