Now That Is Handselling

Yesterday I was in the Market Street Bookshop at Mashpee Commons in Mashpee, Massachusetts. My traveling companion and I were discussing the book about trucks or trains that we wanted to find for a very young family member. We did see a truck book on a shelf, but we both agreed that there was too much text for our young one.

I saw a bookseller come out from behind the counter, and the next thing I know she's bringing us a copy of Trucks, a "slide and find" book from Priddy Books. It's a board book, which works very well for our guy, and there's no lengthy text for him to sit through. It's mainly "What is this?" type stuff with some color matching thrown in. It also has a little something for little fingers to do. Instead of the small lifting sections you usually see in kids' books, which often end up torn by those little fingers I was just talking about, this book has sliders. We'll see how those hold up.

I was incredibly impressed with the way that bookseller hit the nail on the head for us. I've never experienced real bookseller handselling like that. I also know a lot of people have never heard the term "handselling."

Well, if you haven't, that's what it is--matching customers/readers with books. I thought it was exciting.