How much mischief could a few stuffed animals get into if they spent the night at a "sleepover" at
{pages} a bookstore?
Well...Quite a bit, as it turns out. Apparently there was some cookie-eating, phone-calling, Googling, getting tangled in ribbons, and general goofing around.
The stuffed animal sleepover was a first-of-its-kind event at {pages} a bookstore, in conjunction with a reading by acclaimed children's book author and illustrator Benson Shum, and his book Anzu the Great Kaiju.
On Friday night, children arrived at {pages} just before closing - wearing their pajamas and bringing a favorite stuffed animal who would "sleep over" at pages. Then on Saturday morning, the children returned to hear a reading by Shum ... and to see what their stuffed animals had been up to overnight.
"We loved watching the childrens' excitement: listening to stories, tucking in their 'stuffies' for the night, and listening to a wonderful author in the morning," said Pam Page, childrens' specialist at {pages}, adding that more sleepovers would be coming again soon.
"The stuffies found plenty of mischief throughout the store," she added, "but it was great to see the kids' faces when they came back in the morning and saw some pictures of what their little friends had been up to."
Shenanigans Were Had
The sleepover started innocently enough on Friday night with a few bedtime stories and a snack. The kids then tucked their pals into "bed" (little seating cushions, along with special Winnie the Pooh blankets), and said goodnight until the morning...
And that's when the mischief began.
After their owners left and the lights were turned out, the stuffed animals had free run of the bookstore.
A unicorn headed straight over to the computer. A baby leopard seal made a phone call. A moose was spotted climbing into Harry Potter's trunk. And a tiny pup contemplated taking up surfing.
Meanwhile, Hello Kitty got tangled up in the gift-wrapping ribbons.
And while one narwhal got behind the check-out counter, another took a ride on the streamers hanging from the ceiling.
After the shenanigans subsided, the stuffed pals all sat together at a
picnic bench and had a few cookies before settling down to bed.
(One bed is empty because the stuffed animal's owner had second thoughts about parting with her special buddy for the night.)
The kids returned on Saturday morning to find the stuffed animals where they left them... but with plenty of pictures documenting the previous night's antics.
Then they enjoyed a reading of Anzu the Great Kaiju by Shum, who is also an animator at Walt Disney Studios. Shum has worked on such films as Frozen, Big Hero 6, Zootopia, Moana, Frozen 2 and Encanto.
Shum gave a quick demonstration of how to draw "Anzu," the book's hero, and then he took requests for what to add to the scenery ("The planets!" "A comet!" "A juice box!").
A Landmark Destination for Book-Lovers
The sleepover was one of many kids' events - and events in general - that take place all the time at {pages}. The
shop regularly hosts author events and book signings, luncheons at local restaurants, story times, and book clubs.
{pages} is also an ongoing partner with multiple local and regional events,
including TEDx Manhattan Beach and the L.A. Times Festival of Books.
The shop, founded in Manhattan Beach in 2010, is one of only a handful independent bookstores in the Los Angeles area and is consistently named on area "best-of" lists.
The national
Bookshop Blog noted last year that "{pages} embodies author Neil Gaiman’s quote 'A town isn’t really a town without a bookstore' in a landmark way."
