Shelve This in Memoir: Confessions of a Teenage Bookseller

1.

A few months after being hired as a bookseller at the second largest independent bookstore in Indiana, I received an unexpected promotion—to Easter Bunny.

I stared at the bunny suit and accompanying head crushed into the crate in the bookstore’s backroom. “So you want me to put that on?” I said, turning to my boss. My boss—a man in his late 20s—nodded.

“Why me?”

“I don’t know,” he said, grinning. “You look about the right size.”

It was the spring of 2001. I was 16, a sophomore, and, as it turned out, about the right size for the entire menagerie of Saturday morning story hour costumes. Following my stint as the Easter Bunny, I became Clifford the Big Red Dog, Angelina the Ballerina, Franklin the Turtle, Curious George, and Spot, amid a host of other children’s books characters. Since the clunky costumes didn’t allow much in the way of maneuverability, I relied on Sherry—the store’s story time specialist—to guide me by the furry hand from the backroom to the throne in the children’s section. No matter the costume, as soon as I turned the corner, the children greeted me with an enthusiasm generally reserved for Barney and Big Bird. While Sherry read the story, I summoned the miming skills of Marcel Marceau, dramatically reacting to every page. When the story ended, the children engaged in a little light rioting in their attempt to hop onto my lap for a photo.

“Sm-ile!” Sherry called, snapping the photos and allowing the images to unspool from the Polaroid camera. I sweated a river inside that suit until, at last, the line of children reached its end.

“Nice work,” my boss said, removing my