Wild Rumpus, the delightful, very pet-friendly bookstore in Minneapolis, Minn., has been named PW's Bookstore of the Year. Wild Rumpus is a 2,000-square-foot, primarily children's and YA bookstore with a twist: the store is home to a multitude of adopted and rescued animals and operates as something of a petting zoo. Animals living in the store earlier this year included three cats, two rats, two doves, two chinchillas, a ferret, a chicken, a tarantula, a cockatiel and assorted fish. See our feature on Wild Rumpus, published in January, here.
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| Anne DeCourcey | |
And in related news, Anne DeCourcey of HarperCollins has been named PW Sales Rep of the Year. Last year she won the Saul Gilman Award, sponsored by the New England Independent Booksellers Association and honoring the best New England rep.
At the time, she wrote: "My life has been blessed by parents who love books. Inspiration came mostly from Mom, Marilyn Hollinshead, who read to us on our long car trips, had me join the UK Puffin Club (my inelegant elephant leg as umbrella stand story made it into the magazine and I still have my membership pin), who opened Pinocchio Bookstore for Children and put me to work, and whose enthusiasm for books has never waned. I've wandered a bit in my career, working for NEIBA when it was NEBA with Rusty [Drugan, the late former executive director], Penguin then Penguin Putnam as an adult, then children's rep based in Colorado, and had stints with Norton, Fulcrum, Gibbs Smith. My husband & two children and I finally moved back east to a very happy landing spot with HarperCollins Publishers. Sorry, Mom, I still haven't read Arthur Ransome's books, but let me tell you about the one we published about two girls spending a summer on an island...."