The Hearts of the Children: Turning Them Back to Their Parents at Royal Oak Bookshop

On Saturday, September 27, Royal Oak Bookshop will celebrate fifty years of business, and the community is invited to celebrate with them. Its inception in 1975 marked the beginning of a tradition in which the bookshop provided a family-friendly space where people of all ages could come to find books in good condition, on all topics, at an affordable price. Adults who attended as children are now bringing their own children to discover and celebrate the magic of books. This multi-generational enterprise continues to be a pillar in the community, catering to bibliophiles who not only want to read books but also own them.

Tammy Bolden, who has played a key role in keeping the Royal Oak Bookshop alive, stands with visiting children’s author Danny Barron and his son Nick. Royal Examiner Photo Credits: Brenden McHugh.

Amid ongoing Cold War tensions and political divisions, the bookshop was just what Front Royal needed: not only a supplier but a place where book lovers could feel at home. At its location on South Royal Avenue, the shop might at first escape the eye of someone driving past, but to those who know how to look, it is a point of contact, anchoring the soul in an unsteady world, much like the library. Its snug corners, filled with books from floor to ceiling, offer a palpable sense of peace and safety to children who want to learn more about a world they certainly do not understand.

Tammy Bolden, who has been with Royal Oak Bookshop for twenty years, has hinted about the challenges of keeping the bookshop alive. Reading between the lines, one could arguably say that with next-day delivery from Amazon, people may be losing the human touch for everything they gain by instant gratification. They also lose the expertise of staff who curate the selection, frequently providing discoveries that would not occur to the customer otherwise. Ever eager to serve, Bolden and the Royal Oak team will often secure a book by mail-order if the customer desires it and it is not in the collection.

Fellow creative spirit Mary Carnahan shares her own work with Barron.

Indicating that the tradition is not dead, visiting children’s author Danny Barron shared his work at the bookshop on Saturday, September 6, from one to three o’clock, plenty of time for patrons to discover his engaging stories about nature. Illustrated by his son Nathan, who was not present, although Barron was accompanied by his son Nick, these stories offer insight into the way relationships between parent and offspring in the animal world might show a parallel to a human relationship between parent and child, and possibly offer a faith-based association as God relates to his creation. The goal, in Barron’s mind, is to bond parents and children with literature, getting the children back into the laps of their mothers and fathers, not scrolling for hours on their devices. As fiercely as penguins protect their young, parents need to reclaim their children’s attention, diverting them from a digital world that sucks time without returning the investment of that time. What better way to do that than with literature?