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Indianapolis Star
15-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Indianapolis Star
'Everybody has a story about Kids Ink': Local bookstore owner retires after 39 years
Shirley Mullin likes to ask adults what book changed their life. Some just shrug. A few say the Bible. But many say they became a reader because of a book a teacher read aloud to them decades ago. That's what happened for Mullin, 80, in her rural Nebraska schoolhouse in rural Nebraska where her second grade teacher read 'Little House on the Prairie' to the class. When the teacher finished reading the series, the students begged her to read the books again — and she did. Mullin went home and played 'Little House on the Prairie' with her siblings on their family farm, where she was convinced Laura Ingalls Wilder had lived before her. 'It came alive,' she said. Mullin has spent her career making children into readers, first as a kindergarten teacher, and then a librarian and then the owner of Kids Ink Children's Bookstore on North Illinois Street. She's worked to put books in kids' hands for more than 40 years — and now she's the store is not closing. A mother-daughter pair has purchased it from Mullin and plans to carry on her legacy. Kids Ink is a small shop, nestled between storefronts in the Butler-Tarkington neighborhood. Colorful books line the shelves from floor to ceiling, with wooden puzzles, stuffed animals and Playmobil toys tucked between titles. Mullin opened the store in 1986 after a visit to Waldenbooks in the Glendale Mall to buy one of her favorite baby books, 'Goodnight Moon." She said when her own children were growing up, they ruined at least one copy each. So when the bookstore chain didn't have the title on hand, she made a decision. 'If they cannot keep that book in stock, I'll just do it myself,' she said. Almost four decades later, Mullin jokes about what a great business decision that was. Impulsive though it was, it worked. The store hosts story times and author visits. Every summer, Kids Ink participates in the area's 'Where's Waldo' competition for kids to spot Waldo dolls in local shops to win prizes. 'They know my kids, they know my family,' said Lindsay Donaldson, a regular customer who lives nearby. 'We just love it.' Five years ago, the staff helped her pick books to teach her son how to read. Today, they remember he likes historical fiction and stories with dragons. The store has been around long enough that some kids who grew up going to Kids Ink now bring in their own children. 'Everybody has a story about Kids Ink,' Wendy Fitzgerald said. And now Wendy and her daughter Kate will be telling stories of their own. The older Fitzgerald moved to Indianapolis from Wisconsin in February to be close to Kate and her 18-month old granddaughter. One of the first places Wendy visited in her new neighborhood was Kids Ink. A day after Wendy bought her house in Indianapolis, she was let go from her job. Four days later, Kate was let go too. So in June when Wendy heard Kids Ink was for sale, she reached out to Mullin. After what Mullin's lawyer said was the simplest and shortest property sale he'd ever seen, the Fitzgeralds became the new owners of Kids Ink. Mullin has always worked with children and books. Before Kids Ink, she was a kindergarten teacher and a librarian, and then taught children's literature at what was then IUPUI. She reopened the library at Riley Hospital for Children and ran it for almost a decade before she opened Kids Ink. Running a store, she learned, was not the same as working in a library. Mullin wanted to give children books, not sell them. So Mullin found ways to share books with kids who couldn't afford them. She received grants to donate books to Indianapolis Public Schools and other schools around the state. During Christmas, she set up a giving tree for customers to buy books for kids. 'It's just so amazing when they get a first book,' she said. A few years ago, Kids Ink received hundreds of thousands dollars from a private donor to gift packages of books to 900 immigrant children in Wayne Township. The best part, Mullin said, was choosing the books herself. She included an age-appropriate atlas in each child's package so they could look up their homeland. Mullin has spotlighted several Indiana-based authors over the years. Troy Cummings, a children's book author and illustrator who lives in Greencastle, said it seems like every author, teacher and librarian in the state knows Shirley. Cummings remembers the first event he attended at Kids Ink, where kids brought drawings of monsters emulating the creatures in his own books. He sees Kids Ink as a 'launchpad for creativity,' a place for kids to realize the joy to be found in reading. 'It should feel like playing,' he said. 'It should feel like you're getting away with something.' Mullin hand picks what the store stocks — the 'great old books,' quality nonfiction, works by local authors, books on parenting and potty training. 'It's not unusual for Barnes & Noble to call and say, 'We have a customer wanting books on whales, do you have anything?'' she said. 'Well yeah, we do.' Mullin has also tried to appeal to diverse clientele over the years. Kids Ink stocks stories with LGBTQ+ characters and every display includes books about children of color. 'Most librarians and most teachers, they understand that the kids need to see themselves in a book,' Shirley said. 'And they're not going to see themselves in a book if they don't see kids like them.' The Fitzgeralds are eager to carry on that mission. Especially in the current political climate, Kate said, it's important to give kids books that prepare them to go to school with kids different from themselves. 'This is their chance to build their empathy,' Kate said. 'Reading a book is the closest that you'll get to being in somebody else's shoes or feeling feelings that you've never felt before.' Mullin's family worked at Kids Ink from the start and many of her staff became like family to her. Two of her children (both of whom are now authors) worked there for years. In the back of the store, the white walls in the bathroom are scribbled with signatures and notes of affection from authors who have visited Kids Ink. The small room features signatures from Cummings, John Green and hundreds of others. The tradition began almost 30 years ago when Mullin's family repainted the bathroom. Her baby son's footprints were painted and stamped on the wall, and the rest of her family signed their names, she said. Some of the staff have worked there for decades. A teacher, Kathy Taber, came to Kids Ink for book recommendations in 1992 and started working part time. When business was slow, she and Mullin would just sit and chat. 'She cared about each and every one of us that worked there,' Taber said. 'Not only was her knowledge so great, but you know, she just cares about us and what's going on in our lives, which makes her very special.' Many other employees have also been with the shop for more than 20 years. That's part of the reason, Taber said, that it was hard for the staff to hear Mullin would be retiring. 'It'll be different, because you know — Kids Ink is Shirley, or Shirley is Kids Ink, to us,' Taber said. 'But it's a well deserved time for her to retire. You know, she's got plans.' Mullin will garden and continue to speak at local library events. She'll devote time to what she calls her "forever research project," a dive into her family history during WWII. Mullin said she doesn't know how she feels about retirement yet as it's only been a few weeks. She's mostly been "untangling" things so far. 'For me, it feels a lot like ripping off a Band-Aid,' she said. 'But that's okay. I was ready for it. I was ready for it before it happened.'
Yahoo
02-06-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
‘It's so boring': Gen Z parents don't like reading to their kids - and educators are worried
Last week, former elementary school teacher Spencer Russell posed a question to parents who follow his Instagram account, Toddlers Can Read: 'Why aren't you reading aloud to your kids?' The responses, which Russell shared with the Guardian, ranged from embarrassed to annoyed to angry. 'It's so boring,' said one parent. 'I don't have time,' said another. One mother wrote in: 'I don't enjoy reading myself.' Others reported difficulty getting their children to sit still long enough for a full dose of Goodnight Moon or Mother Goose: 'He's always interrupting,' or 'my son just wants to skip all the pages.' They noted the monotony of story time, with one saying: 'I love reading with my kids, but they request the same book over and over.' Screen time is replacing one-on-one, quality interactions between parent and child Spencer Russell Parents who struggle to read to their children tend to be younger themselves, according to a recent survey from HarperCollins UK. Fewer than half of gen Z parents called reading to their children 'fun for me', and almost one in three saw reading as 'more of a subject to learn' than something to be enjoyed – significantly more than their gen X counterparts. This mindset undoubtedly trickles down to their kids: the survey also found that only a third of five-to-10 year olds frequently read for fun, compared to over half in 2012. This could be because their parents are less likely to read to them before they turn five: 41% of parents of all ages reported doing so, a steep drop from the 64% in 2012. If parents are reading out loud to their children less, US educators can tell. Russell, who offers courses to teach literacy skills to kids as young as 18 months, regularly gets inquiries from parents of older children – some as old as 14 – who still struggle to crack open a book. There are other tell-tale signs. 'We see children who can sit still and focus for hours on YouTube or Miss Rachel, but when you sit them down with a book, they move, wiggle, or scream and run away,' said Russell, who lives in Houston. Gen Z parents inherited an economy racked by inequity and instability that makes child rearing all the more stressful. The cost of childcare in the US – roughly $11,000 a year on average – has skyrocketed since the 90s. It's no wonder they might be too tired or stressed to read to their kids at night, even if they realize it's important to do so. At the same time, screens are inescapable – notably, gen Z parents were the first generation to grow up with them. 'I don't think we can divorce the role of technology influencing gen Z parents and their kids with the decline in reading out loud,' Russell said. 'Screen time is replacing one-on-one, quality interactions between parent and child.' One of the most helpful ways to read books is by having a conversation with children about what they're interested in Dawna Duff Loads of evidence shows that excessive screen time can harm a child's cognitive, linguistic and social-emotional growth, and doctors recommend that parents limit 'non-educational screen time' for children ages two to five to about one hour per weekday, and three on the weekends. But you try getting a toddler to settle into story time without giving in to her demands to watch Bluey. Most parents see the iPad as a necessary evil. America's so-called 'literacy crises' is well-documented; an Atlantic report from last fall found that many elite college students fail to complete English assignments, as they never had to read a full book in high school. The pandemic wreaked havoc on students' performance in both math and reading, with scores in both subjects dropping to the lowest margin in over 30 years. On TikTok, teachers have taken to posting PSAs urging parents to read to their children with the caption: 'I bet you I can't tell who was breast-fed vs formula-fed, but I can tell you who has grown ups that read to them every night.' Kids who don't get a head start reading at home often have trouble catching up to those who do, says Dawna Duff, an associate professor of speech language pathology at Suny's Binghamton University. 'Books are a really rich source of learning new words, and if kids don't have that experience reading at home, they're likely to come to school knowing less vocabulary – and that makes a big difference in how successful you're going to be throughout school,' she said. But kids don't just learn to read at school. Becky Calzada, president of the American Association of School Librarians, stresses the importance of parents as 'reading role models'. Reading out loud to children not only helps them learn vocabulary, but it builds emotional intelligence, such as the ability to empathize and connect, Caldaza says. According to the HarperCollins report, more than one in five boys aged zero to two are rarely or never read to, while 44% of girls in that age group are read to every day. This comes as boys continue to fall behind girls in school – they are more likely to enter kindergarten behind girls, earn lower GPAs and not graduate high school. Russell acknowledges that books are 'never going to compete with YouTube', and that the pressures of parenthood in 2025 are immense. As one parent told him: 'I just don't have the energy to read to my kid. Me and my wife don't 'have a village', so it's hard to rest.' But there are ways to wean kids away from their phones. 'Just scale it back a little, as much as you can at first.' Related: She compared motherhood in four countries. The US isn't looking good Calzada encourages parents who don't like reading to their children to start slowly. 'You don't have to sit there for 20 minutes to an hour,' she said. 'A two-year-old doesn't have much reading stamina, but you can read them something that has maybe five pages, that's mostly 'the cow says moo, the pink says oink,' and you gradually build up from there.' Nor should parents give up if their children aren't paying full attention during story time. According to Duff, 'you shouldn't feel like you need to read every word on the page, or even any words on the page.' Talking about the book's pictures, or asking kids to tell the story in their own words counts, too. 'We know one of the most helpful ways to read books is by having a conversation with children about what they're interested in,' she added. 'Follow their lead.'
The Guardian
02-06-2025
- Health
- The Guardian
‘It's so boring': Gen Z parents don't like reading to their kids - and educators are worried
Last week, former elementary school teacher Spencer Russell posed a question to parents who follow his Instagram account, Toddlers Can Read: 'Why aren't you reading aloud to your kids?' The responses, which Russell shared with the Guardian, ranged from embarrassed to annoyed to angry. 'It's so boring,' said one parent. 'I don't have time,' said another. One mother wrote in: 'I don't enjoy reading myself.' Others reported difficulty getting their children to sit still long enough for a full dose of Goodnight Moon or Mother Goose: 'He's always interrupting,' or 'my son just wants to skip all the pages.' They noted the monotony of story time, with one saying: 'I love reading with my kids, but they request the same book over and over.' Parents who struggle to read to their children tend to be younger themselves, according to a recent survey from HarperCollins UK. Fewer than half of gen Z parents called reading to their children 'fun for me', and almost one in three saw reading as 'more of a subject to learn' than something to be enjoyed – significantly more than their gen X counterparts. This mindset undoubtedly trickles down to their kids: the survey also found that only a third of five-to-10 year olds frequently read for fun, compared to over half in 2012. This could be because their parents are less likely to read to them before they turn five: 41% of parents of all ages reported doing so, a steep drop from the 64% in 2012. If parents are reading out loud to their children less, US educators can tell. Russell, who offers courses to teach literacy skills to kids as young as 18 months, regularly gets inquiries from parents of older children – some as old as 14 – who still struggle to crack open a book. There are other tell-tale signs. 'We see children who can sit still and focus for hours on YouTube or Miss Rachel, but when you sit them down with a book, they move, wiggle, or scream and run away,' said Russell, who lives in Houston. Gen Z parents inherited an economy racked by inequity and instability that makes child rearing all the more stressful. The cost of childcare in the US – roughly $11,000 a year on average – has skyrocketed since the 90s. It's no wonder they might be too tired or stressed to read to their kids at night, even if they realize it's important to do so. At the same time, screens are inescapable – notably, gen Z parents were the first generation to grow up with them. 'I don't think we can divorce the role of technology influencing gen Z parents and their kids with the decline in reading out loud,' Russell said. 'Screen time is replacing one-on-one, quality interactions between parent and child.' Loads of evidence shows that excessive screen time can harm a child's cognitive, linguistic and social-emotional growth, and doctors recommend that parents limit 'non-educational screen time' for children ages two to five to about one hour per weekday, and three on the weekends. But you try getting a toddler to settle into story time without giving in to her demands to watch Bluey. Most parents see the iPad as a necessary evil. America's so-called 'literacy crises' is well-documented; an Atlantic report from last fall found that many elite college students fail to complete English assignments, as they never had to read a full book in high school. The pandemic wreaked havoc on students' performance in both math and reading, with scores in both subjects dropping to the lowest margin in over 30 years. On TikTok, teachers have taken to posting PSAs urging parents to read to their children with the caption: 'I bet you I can't tell who was breast-fed vs formula-fed, but I can tell you who has grown ups that read to them every night.' Kids who don't get a head start reading at home often have trouble catching up to those who do, says Dawna Duff, an associate professor of speech language pathology at Suny's Binghamton University. 'Books are a really rich source of learning new words, and if kids don't have that experience reading at home, they're likely to come to school knowing less vocabulary – and that makes a big difference in how successful you're going to be throughout school,' she said. But kids don't just learn to read at school. Becky Calzada, president of the American Association of School Librarians, stresses the importance of parents as 'reading role models'. Reading out loud to children not only helps them learn vocabulary, but it builds emotional intelligence, such as the ability to empathize and connect, Caldaza says. Sign up to Well Actually Practical advice, expert insights and answers to your questions about how to live a good life after newsletter promotion According to the HarperCollins report, more than one in five boys aged zero to two are rarely or never read to, while 44% of girls in that age group are read to every day. This comes as boys continue to fall behind girls in school – they are more likely to enter kindergarten behind girls, earn lower GPAs and not graduate high school. Russell acknowledges that books are 'never going to compete with YouTube', and that the pressures of parenthood in 2025 are immense. As one parent told him: 'I just don't have the energy to read to my kid. Me and my wife don't 'have a village', so it's hard to rest.' But there are ways to wean kids away from their phones. 'Just scale it back a little, as much as you can at first.' Calzada encourages parents who don't like reading to their children to start slowly. 'You don't have to sit there for 20 minutes to an hour,' she said. 'A two-year-old doesn't have much reading stamina, but you can read them something that has maybe five pages, that's mostly 'the cow says moo, the pink says oink,' and you gradually build up from there.' Nor should parents give up if their children aren't paying full attention during story time. According to Duff, 'you shouldn't feel like you need to read every word on the page, or even any words on the page.' Talking about the book's pictures, or asking kids to tell the story in their own words counts, too. 'We know one of the most helpful ways to read books is by having a conversation with children about what they're interested in,' she added. 'Follow their lead.'
Montreal Gazette
29-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Montreal Gazette
Books for Kids: Stories to send them to sleep
Books By Special to Montreal Gazette 'In the great green room there was a telephone and a red balloon and a picture of the cow jumping over the moon ...' When I acquired a copy of Goodnight Moon soon after the birth of my first child, the classic picture book by Margaret Wise Brown with those opening lines, originally published in 1947, left me decidedly underwhelmed. The text, in a lilting rhyme, basically consisted of a list of things in a room and Clement Hurd's illustrations, while colourful, struck me as flat-looking and simplistic. But reading the book to my sons at bedtime changed my mind. Their interest in pointing at items listed in the soothing, repetitive text helped explain why, decades later, Goodnight Moon remains a staple of nightly bedtime routines in households where sharing a book with little ones is valued. Goodnight Moon has become my go-to gift for new mothers (although I also like to tuck in Sandra Boynton's comical The Going to Bed Book, first published in 1982), but over the years plenty of other titles have made the list of bedtime books. Below, some new and relatively recent additions. By Shauntay Grant Illustrated by Zach Manbeck Tundra Books Ages 2 to 5 Nova Scotia's Shauntay Grant was inspired by Goodnight Moon when she wrote the rhyming text for this just-published picture book. Pennsylvania-based illustrator Zach Manbeck cites the film The Wizard of Oz and the paintings of Maxfield Parrish and Vincent van Gogh as his inspirations. The result is a lyrical bedtime book with golden mixed-media art that depicts a child busy with his toy box who allows himself to be carried off by a magical Mother Moon figure through a starry sky into a dreamlike playland filled with familiar toy characters, where he is finally lulled to sleep. The Great Dinosaur Sleepover By Linda Bailey Illustrated by Joe Bluhm Tundra Books Ages 4 to 8 Jake is about to celebrate a birthday; he invites three friends to a sleepover with a dinosaur theme. Jake loves dinosaurs! Everything is ready when the big day arrives — except that things go 'stupendously wrong' when his dad tells him the friends have all caught the flu and the sleepover will have to be postponed. 'But everything's ready NOW!' Jake wails. Too sad to eat, he goes to bed early, waking in the middle of the night when he hears a snort. Creeping downstairs, he finds three dinosaurs watching TV. It makes for the best birthday ever, especially when three more dinos join them for games outside. When he tells his parents about it the next morning, they say he must have been dreaming. Until one of his friends shows up with a special birthday gift! Happy Dreams, Little Bunny Written and illustrated by Leah Hong Little, Brown & Co. Ages 3 to 7 Little Bunny, the central figure in Leah Hong's bedtime story, has trouble getting to sleep, so his mom suggests turning some of the thoughts that keep him awake into dreams. 'It won't be hard,' she says, 'with your imagination.' Little Bunny enlists the help of his toy elephant and together they dream up a magical series of adventures that eventually help Little Bunny drift off to sleep. Beautifully illustrated in pastel, pencil crayon and graphite, the text is written as a loving question-and-answer exchange between Mommy and Little Bunny. Awake, Asleep By Kyle Lukoff Illustrated by Nadia Alam Orchard Books, a Scholastic imprint Ages 3 to 5 Beginning with 'a kiss, a blink, a dawn, a break,' author Kyle Lukoff and Toronto-based illustrator Nadia Alam introduce us to three diverse families and their young offspring as they go about a day's activities, occasionally crossing paths, until night falls and the book ends with 'a kiss, a blink, a night, asleep.' The minimal text, combined with the lively images, tells a story of three sets of neighbours and how their children interact. A wonderful bedtime book, since even those who can't read for themselves yet will be able to decode the images and appreciate their message of individuality and togetherness. Too Early By Nora Ericson Illustrated by Elly MacKay Abrams Books for Young Readers Ages 3 to 7 'You wake up too early,' Daddy tells his early riser, as he shuffles the child down the stairs, trying not to wake the baby and letting Mama have more time in bed. Downstairs, he gets the coffee pot burbling and gives the early riser some warm milk before they both head out to the porch and snuggle together to watch the stars in the sky. An evocative text and glowing illustrations make this a perfect bedtime book, since it offers the promise of a new day to follow a night's sleep.
Yahoo
28-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
My era of raising kids? It's a wrap
"I still have no clue what I'm doing." That was the first sentence I wrote when my FLORIDA TODAY parenting column, Momsense, was introduced to readers in April 2013. My kids, Kristen and Jacob, were 10 and 6. I was knee-deep in raising two kids, working full time and trying to maintain some modicum of grace, even in the midst of a divorce. My goal back then was to write about current parenting issues and share honestly about my experience parenting — the ugly parts and all. And to make others laugh and realize they're not alone. There were the parties that no one liked to RSVP to, leaving me with loads of leftover birthday cake. The shopping trips that almost escalated into 'Code Adams' because someone thought it would be fun to launch into a surprise game of hide and seek at Kohl's. Toddler faceplants during moments of social discomfort. Dealing with the misery of lice. The sudden calls from your little one in the bathroom, yelling, "Can someone wipe my butt?" I remember fantasizing about the day I didn't have to bring a stroller or diaper bag wherever I went. I dreamed of the kids being old enough to hang out for a few hours at home when I went out with friends. Twelve years later, part of me feels like I still don't know what I'm doing. Yet I feel this incredible urge to share this journey with those of you starting out or still in the middle of it. And please listen to me. Embrace every single moment. Even the tough ones. Because one day, you'll wish you could go back. You'll miss sneaking into your tiny baby's room just to watch her sleep. You'll even miss dropping your son off at VPK for the first time and praying he won't think you abandoned him. You'd do anything to have them beg you to read 'Goodnight Moon' one more time before bed. But you can't. This parenting thing never ends. It just changes shape. Drastically. Maybe you're thinking of starting a family. Or you're smack0\-dab in the middle of child-rearing and not so sure how much longer your patience can last — or if you can continue to survive on four hours of sleep a night. Our babies grow up. They stop puking on our favorite shirts. Diaper blowouts in the middle of a flight are a thing of the past. They stop begging you for the latest video game. They learn to drive. They figure out what they're good at. They have their own dreams, goals and plans. And you go from needing to rent a U-Haul every August to shuffle belongings from one college apartment to the next to not really being needed at all. They say it goes fast. You may not believe it now, but it does. My daughter just graduated college. My son, high school. And I, apparently, just graduated to the 5-0 club, leaving me wondering about menopause and awaiting a hip replacement in July. Who am I now? What am I? I'm still figuring that part out. But I know this for sure — I am one proud mom, even if my role in my kids' lives has changed. My ex and I have been able to co-parent successfully. And despite living in two households, welcoming a new stepdad and experiencing the grueling pain of losing their amazing bonus mom to breast cancer four years ago, my kids have somehow turned out to be amazing humans. They've each found their "thing" – and are excelling at it. My children even set me straight more than five years ago when I was drinking heavily at nights and on the weekends. I quit after my son begged me to, tears in his eyes. So, I didn't just teach them about life. They taught me, too. Parenting never ends. I have loved these two since the moment they were conceived. I always will. I will never stop worrying about them until I take my last breath. But that's the unofficial contract you sign when you become a parent. You pretty much live with a piece of your heart outside of your body. It's the hardest job in the world. But the very best one. As the school year closes and if you're facing a houseful of bored kids for the next few months, here's my final piece of Momsense. Take a memorable trip with no set agenda and make some special memories. Laugh every chance you can. Be a sounding board for fellow moms who get it. And remember this. If you're about to have a bad parenting moment, it's perfectly acceptable to lock yourself in your bathroom and scream into a pillow. Not that I would know. Paulson is a former FLORIDA TODAY journalist and columnist. You can reach her at sjenniferpaulson@ This article originally appeared on Florida Today: My era of raising kids? It's a wrap | Momense
