SFScope friend Andrew Porter alerts us to the dire straits in which New York City’s children’s bookstore Books of Wonder (18 West 18th Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues) finds itself. The 38-year-old store is in financial difficulty due not to its operations, but to a failed subtenant that was taken on when the store moved to its current home eight years ago. In an attempt to make up the financial shortfall, owner Peter Glassman is running an Indiegogo fund raising project seeking to raise $100,000 by mid-November (see http://www.indiegogo.com/booksofwonderfor the campaign).

Photo by Andrew Porter.

Glassman writes:

About Books of Wonder and our campaign: Ever since opening Books of Wonder in 1980, the store has been devoted to promoting a love and devotion to the best children’s books of today while helping preserve the great children’s books of childhoods past. Over the past 32 years, Books of Wonder has grown to be a landmark of the New York City landscape. Countless parents, grandparents, teachers, librarians, and all who love great stories and illustration have come to Books of Wonder to find the perfect book for the children they love and meet some of the incredible authors and artists who create these books.

There have been many ups and downs over the past three decades, but now we face our biggest challenge yet. Due to an enormous, unexpected expense, Books of Wonder finds its future endangered.  If the store is to survive, we must raise a minimum of $100,000. With your help, we hope to do just that and keep Books of Wonder open and thriving as New York’s premier destination for all those who love children’s books.

Your Support Today Will Ensure We are Here for You Tomorrow: When we moved into our current space eight years ago, we leased out 40% of the space to a well-established NYC bakery to provide a cafe for our customers. Unfortunately, the Great Recession was even harder on cupcakes than children’s books and they were forced to close, still owing us many months back rent and utilities. Worse still, with the economy hurting, we could not find a new subtenant, and so had to pay the rent on the space we had previously rented. The result of these unexpected expenses, is that Books of Wonder has had to layout over $300,000 in rent and utilities that we expected to be paid by our subtenant. This has strained our resources to the limit. And that is why we are launching this campaign.

Over the years, Books of Wonder has been fortunate to host many incredibly talented authors and artists. When we reached out to them for help with our campaign, their enthusiastic response was overwhelming. Thanks to their immense generosity and talent, we have assembled a wonderful collection of thank you gifts for those of you who contribute. Many of these gifts are exclusive to this campaign and some are truly one-of-a-kind. We have put a lot of effort into making sure that our thank you gifts reflect what Books of Wonder is all about and – most importantly – how very much your support means to us.

The future of Books of Wonder: This is a crucial moment for Books of Wonder and we know we can come out of this campaign stronger and ready to face the challenges of the future. Everyone here at Books of Wonder is passionate about children’s books and loves sharing that passion with the thousands of children and adults who visit us each year from around the New York City area and around the world.

Your contributions today will make it possible for Books of Wonder to be here for many more tomorrows. They will enable us to restore our depleted finances, make some much-needed improvements to the store, continue bringing in great books and the talented authors and artists who create them, and provide you – our friends and customers – with the one-of-a-kind experience that has become the hallmark of Books of Wonder.

Porter adds his own note: “I remember when Books of Wonder first opened—they were on Hudson Street—and they’ve always been a big supporter of children’s fantasy and SF (and an advertiser in my Algol/Starship in the 1980s). Peter Glassman is older (and stouter) than he was in the 1970s, but he’s still doing a great job for kids who read SF and fantasy.

I, too, have several connections with the store, including working there for a couple of temporary stints, and having the book launch party for my own The Presidential Book of Lists in the store four years ago.

At press time, the campaign has more than $25,000 pledged, with 29 days still to go.