Where Are the Totally Ninja Raccoons in Wellsboro?

“Laurel Fest, Endless Mountain Music Festival, Hickory Fest, Where's Waldo--everything has been cancelled,” said Kevin Coolidge, owner of From My Shelf Books & Gifts at 7 East Avenue in Wellsboro. For seven straight years we’ve held ‘Where's Waldo’ in Wellsboro. Candlewick, the publisher cancelled this year’s July 1-31 Where’s Waldo and we can't do it without permission, but we can create a new event,” Coolidge said.

This July From My Shelf Books will hold "Where Are the Totally Ninja Raccoons." Twenty-four local businesses, those in downtown Wellsboro and surrounding areas, are invited to be Totally Ninja Raccoon hosts.

To be a "Totally Ninja Raccoon" location, businesses need to be open at least five days a week and provide a prize worth at least $10. Participating businesses will each get a cardboard "Totally Ninja Raccoon" figure to hide in their stores.

In July, searchers - youngsters and adults - will go to as many of the participating businesses as they can to look for the Totally Ninja Raccoons. Once a searcher finds them, someone at the business will stamp or sign the searcher’s passport.

Each Totally Ninja Raccoon searcher must turn in his/her passport to From My Shelf Books & Gifts by Friday, July 31. The bookstore will create a separate ticket with the searcher's name for each place he/she has found the raccoons and put all of those tickets in the bookstore’s prize jar.

Winners' names will be drawn from the prize jar during the wrap-up Totally Ninja Raccoon party at the bookstore on Saturday, Aug. 31. The more times a searcher’s name is in the bookstore’s jar based on the number of participating businesses he/she has visited in July, the higher that person’s chances are of winning a prize.

Businesses interested in being a "Where Are the Totally Ninja Raccoons" host are asked to call Kasey at From My Shelf Books & Gifts at 570-724-5793 soon.

Kevin Coolidge Has a New Website

Our resident author, Kevin Coolidge, decided to create a new website just for his books. Don't worry, you can still purchase all of his books at From My Shelf Books & Gifts. It's just the next big ninja leap for the Totally Ninja Raccoons.


CLICK ON THE BANNER TO BE WHISKED TO THE WEBSITE

We Are Open!

From My Shelf Books & Gifts is open to the public according to safety guidelines provided by the Governor's office, using the "yellow" level instructions.

Our phone number: 570-724-5793. Phones will be answered from 9am to 6pm, Monday through Saturday, and 11am to 4pm on Sunday.

Our email is from_my_shelf@yahoo.com, and is answered regularly, all hours. We also frequently to messages on our Facebook page.

We will also continue to offer curbside pickup for orders; delivery within 5 miles of the store; and shipping. We've been making arrangements to suit our customers' degree of need and comfort, and will continue to do so.

Thanks!

Kasey & Kevin

Support your favorite bookstore AND your reading habit with NEW RELEASES!

My friends, spring is finally.... dare I say it? .... coming to the Northern Tier, and with it comes some highly anticipated book releases!

If the "lockdown" and "shelter in place" has encouraged you and yours to read more, we have some exciting new books coming out to feed the read!

First, Suzanne Collins, author of the "Hunger Games" series, returns to Panem with a prequel entitled "The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes". The book takes us back to the tenth annual Hunger Games, when an eighteen year old Coriolanus Snow is chosen at the Reaping at the Capitol. This is, if you will, the origin story of Snow's rise to power, and a view into Panem many, many years before Katniss Everdeen.

This book releases on Tuesday, May 19, a mere 5 days away!!! If you haven't already ordered this book with the ... ah-hem, the "Capitol" .... then why not support your local bookstore and preorder with us?

You can order through this link below, or call us at 570-724-5793, or email from_my_shelf (at) yahoo.com

https://wellsborobookstore.indielite.org/book/9781338635171

Other hot titles here, just recently released, include:

John Sandford's newest, Masked Prey

John Grisham's newest, Camino Winds

Glennon Doyle's memoir/self-help/claim your power/inspirational book, Untamed

Julia Spencer-Fleming's long-awaited book, Hid From Our Eyes

and Elly Griffiths' most recent book, finally released in paperback: Stone Circle
Don't forget she has a new one coming in June, called The Lantern Men


We also have plenty of copies of current favorites, including "Little Fires Everywhere", "The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek", "The Great Influenza", "Spillover", "The Stand", and of course, many more!

Let us know about new books you've discovered and new reads you are excited about!


Thanks for everything! Happy reading!

We raised the goal on our GoFundMe today, because.... life.

UPDATE on our GoFundMe campaign:

Thank you all so much, for all your support, in the myriad of ways you've shown it. Thanks to you, we were able to send our landlord the check for the April rent.

When it rains, it pours, sadly. Life happens. I raised the amount on our goal today. In the last 24 hours, a chunk of glass dropped out of a cracked window that we were waiting on nicer weather to get fixed. Sure, we have glass insurance, but there was a sizable deductible, so when we put in the claim last fall, the insurance company wrote us a big $11 check. Now, it needs fixed immediately. Oh, and our car battery died this morning.

Normally, we can take care of our own expenses, but, as we all know, this is not a normal time.

Thanks for anything you can donate to keep us going through this time. Thanks to those who have already donated, and those who are shopping with us, and those who are sharing for us and cheering us on.

We love you! Stay well.

Opening to the Public

We will open to the public on Friday, May 8th, according to safety guidelines provided by the Governor's office, using the "yellow" level instructions.

Our phone number: 570-724-5793. Phones will be answered from 9am to 6pm, Monday through Saturday, and 11am to 4pm on Sunday.

Our email is from_my_shelf@yahoo.com, and is answered regularly, all hours. We also frequently to messages on our Facebook page.

We will continue to offer curbside pickup for orders; delivery within 5 miles of the store; and shipping. We've been making arrangements to suit our customers' degree of need and comfort, and will continue to do so.

Thanks!

Kasey & Kevin

h

From My Shelf Spring Rent

We received disappointing and scary news today: we found out the Small Business Disaster Loan website basically "lost" our application because we applied "too early", while the website was still unstable. After a long talk with apologetic folks manning the SBA helpline, I found out that we will need to reapply for disaster loan help, since the portal is currently closed to "new" applications.

My landlord would at least like to have a check for our April rent of $1500. We'd been hoping to have money for rent, utils, and other basic expenses soon, since we were right on the ball applying for SBA EIDL on March 29. While we have been doing a lot more online sales these past 3+ weeks, we're not making a lot of money, since shipping involves higher costs, with shipping materials like mailers, postage, tape, and is more labor-intensive.

We have been so grateful for all the friends, community members, and loyal customers who have offered support, and have continued ordering with us through this uncertain time. We are doing everything we can to make sure that we will continue to be a great independent bookstore throughout this crisis and beyond. From My Shelf and its staff want to commit to our ongoing presence as essential parts of this community. We appreciate everything you've done for us, and want to keep giving back to you.