Welcome to our bookstore & toy store located downtown on the square of Aurora. Our greatest desire is to give anyone walking through our door a new world. To enter a portal where there is quiet. Where there is joy. Where there is friendship. Where there is laughter. Where there is play. We want anyone leaving to know their life was just given a few moments where they had a rest in their song. Our music plays so fast. Within the portals of our store we want everyone to find a few of the rests that make our songs more beautiful.
As I grew up my parents put books into 40 gas stations along the interstate at the same time as farming in Aurora. They often stated that if someone purchased a book during the day the words might change their life when read at midnight. I was a 6th grade teacher in Arkansas, Minnesota, and California before moving back to Nebraska in 2000. My parents both died 25 years ago and that is when my husband (currently teaching Biology at CCC in Grand Island) and I took the books from their home & opened our store downtown Aurora to continue having books be easily accessible in rural America.
All of the books in our used bookstore are donated from readers across the state of Nebraska. Because the books are donated over 3,000 books are now given away across the state each month. All teachers, jails, pastors, hospice workers, CASA, full-time students, & retirement homes get their books free when they are able to come over to the store. Because of donations we are also able to let everyone who comes into the store take a free book home. And, because of donations, we are able to have all of our used books affordable for all who come in.
We now have added a room of jigsaw puzzles with highest-quality companies including Ravensburger. White Mountain, New York Puzzle Co, SunsOut, Cobble Hill Puzzles and Heritage Puzzles. We are concentrating of carrying quality gifts that are worth a drive to get to Aurora.
Our toy store carries companies that I purchased as a teacher and as a mother. Science, crafts, art projects, and quality stuffed animals and dolls. Unicorns, dinosaurs, STEM science kits, Crystal Art, puzzles, along with all children getting to choose a book to take home as a gift.
The reason we decided to stay open after Covid was we truly believe that having a store for people to meet and talk and be encouraged and find friendship matters greatly. I read a book on the loneliness of small-town America. How in small towns people are lonelier that other places in the world. If one travels overseas or where there is poverty, the people are not lonely. If in a city, people still have somewhere to go to be greeted. In small-town America most stores close early and people stay home and there is a loneliness greater than elsewhere. This thought affected us to keep the store open. To find volunteers, and to keep books in rural Nebraska that will change lives.
As we think about how to keep our retail store in the middle of Nebraska vibrant and growing we will continue to find small gifts and educational quality smaller games and toys that are affordable, but are not found very many places. We will continue to look for what is worth driving even a few hours to find. We will continue to have our main goal bringing joy to those who enter and hope that that they will share with their friends and continue to bring us their quality books.
One of my favorite quotes that I read each morning I’d like to share with you.
“Every morning lean thine eyes upon the window-sill of heaven and gaze upon Thy Lord; then, with the vision in thine heart, turn strong to meet thy day.” William Blake (1757-1827)
I hope you can come into our store for a cup of coffee and find a book that might change your life. If you can only come by our website, then I hope that you find words that lift you and help you see the small gifts in your life showing that life is beautiful. Susan