Books

The writer who went back to bookselling

Sarah Webb has just brought out a new book but she is also back selling books, her first love

Sarah Webb and illustrator Peter Donnelly outside Halfway Up the Stairs in Greystones.

Sarah Webb
Sat Oct 9 2021 - 05:59

When I told people I was going back to bookselling, no one was terribly surprised, especially my friends in the book trade. “It’s in your blood,” Ivan O’Brien from The O’Brien Press said. “Did you say yes before Trish had a chance to finish her question?” Bob Johnson from The Gutter Bookshop joked.

Trish is Trish Hennessy, the owner and manager of Halfway Up the Stairs in Greystones, a local independent bookshop, specialising in books for children, teenagers and young adults. When she asked me would I be interested in covering her holiday leave in August, channelling Molly Bloom, “yes I said yes I will Yes”. Not really, but there was certainly a lot of yeses involved.

I’ll explain. My first “proper” job after graduating from college was as a part-time bookseller at Hodges Figgis bookshop on Dawson Street in Dublin’s city centre. I worked antisocial hours, evenings, weekends, bank holidays, but I fell deeply in love with everything about bookselling, from being surrounded by books and fellow book lovers, to shelving crisp new books, ordering more books, and most especially helping customers find the right book or, even better, recommending something they might enjoy reading. I especially loved working in the children’s department. I’d never stopped reading children’s books, I read them the whole way through school and college, and I still devour them to this day.

A full-time job came up in Hughes and Hughes in St Stephen’s Green and here I became adept at tidying the picturebooks, a job no one else wanted to do, especially after a busy, sticky toddler-mauling Saturday. After moving down the road to Waterstones on Dawson Street my bookselling skills really took flight when I was made the children’s buyer of the large department and spent many happy years running events for schools and families, welcoming children’s writers into the shop, and once again trying to find the perfect book for every young reader.

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I started writing my first book while working here. Kids Can Cook was published by The Children’s Press and I organised my own book launch in my own children’s department. Eventually I was lured away from Waterstones by the promise of a steady nine to five, Monday to Friday role at Eason where I became their first children’s buyer and marketing manager and, after many happy years working there, I left to write full time.

I never fully left bookselling, working as a children’s consultant for Dubray Books as well as writing. I also continued to review books and to programme and run the children’s side of various book festivals like Mountains to Sea, and to work with MoLI (Museum of Literature Ireland) where I help programme their family events to this day.

During the lockdowns of the last 18 months, I realised that children needed books more than ever – for both comfort and escapism. With bookshops shut, finding the right book for young readers was proving difficult for parents so I took to social media, recommending books every day. It made me feel useful and connected with the wider bookselling community, as I linked in various bookshops, most especially Halfway Up the Stairs.

Trish and I started doing online events together, enjoying great success with our Children’s Books Salons, online evening events for adults who want to know more about children’s books, where writers and illustrators talk about their work and their new books.

Working with Trish and her team on these events made me feel useful and connected but it also made me happy. I’ve always been a proponent of doing more of the things that make you happy so I made a decision, I’d try the shop floor again. And bravely – as my bookselling skills were very rusty – Trish took me on and I’m still there, a part-time bookseller once again. My working life has come full circle.

During the lockdowns, booksellers went into overdrive, cycling and driving all over the towns and villages of Ireland, delivering books to those who needed them and checking on their customers.

Working on the shop floor in a small, independent bookshop, I’ve quickly realised what an important role these local shops in particular play in their communities. They are more than mere retail units, they are places of calm, wonder and wisdom, places where the advice given out doesn’t always relate to books.

On an average day we find the perfect books for young readers, yes, but we also listen to young couples as they share their dreams of moving to Greystones or Wicklow and ask about schools; we talk to grandparents who are desperately missing their grandchildren living abroad and are sending them care packages of Irish books. We reassure parents who are worried about their children’s reading skills; we chat to solo teenagers about the latest YA titles (Young Adult), sensing their need for a bit of connection with a friendly person in real life. We tell the boy who wants a unicorn book and the girl who wants a dinosaur book that unicorns and dinosaurs are for everyone!

When my new book, The Little Bee Charmer of Henrietta Street came out it went straight into the window for its moment in the sun. But when the next promotion arrived – Free to Be Me from Children’s Books Ireland, devoted to promoting diverse and inclusive books – out it came. As it should be, so is the way of bookselling. New books come in every month, glorious, enchanting books that we need to help young readers discover.

While working in the shop, nothing else matters, all focus is on the customer and this is a magical thing for both the staff and the readers. In bookshops, stories are not ending, they are just beginning.

You can find Sarah at Halfway Up the Stairs Children’s Bookshop most Saturdays. Her new book, The Little Bee Charmer of Henrietta Street, illustrated by Rachel Corcoran, has recently been published by The O’Brien Press.