PARK SLOPE — A new bookstore where kids can both shop for stories and learn how to write them is opening this spring.
Novelist Maggie Pouncey and her husband Matt Miller are opening Stories at 458 Bergen St., between Fifth and Flatbush avenues.
Pouncey, author of "Perfect Reader," said she's long had a fantasy of opening a bookshop, and saw an opportunity to pursue her dream when her husband left his full-time job at an education technology company.
"I saw a window to convince him to be my business partner," Pouncey said. "He brings the business sense."
The two teamed up to write a business plan and found a space last summer at 458 Bergen, which was previously occupied by the men's clothing store Private Stock.
The shop will be a cozy 600 square feet, with 200 square feet devoted to a "storytelling lab" where kids can learn writing and other storytelling arts.
"It's not a huge shop, so it's going to be a highly curated collection of children's books from age zero to young adult," Pouncey said. "We want all of the recommendations to feel very personal, that it's books we really love."
Shelves will be stocked with a mix of contemporary children's books and classics, said Pouncey, the mother of a 2-year-old and 6-year-old. Pouncey said children's literature is experiencing a "golden age of beautifully illustrated books," such as Jon J. Muth's series about the Zen panda Stillwater, and Matthew Burgess' "Enormous Smallness," a picture book about poet e.e. cummings.
But Stories will also carry tried-and-true tales along the lines of Laura Ingalls Wilder's "Little House on the Prairie" series and picture books such as "Corduroy" and "Caps for Sale," Pouncey said. The shop will also have some vintage and out-of-print books, as well as a parenting section.
The "storytelling lab" part of the space will offer creative writing workshops for kids ages 7 to 13.
"I'm really interested in kind of playing with the adult writing workshop and trying to reinvent that a little for younger kids — forming a community of writers, giving feedback to each other and revising — but also making it more playful," Pouncey said.
She also plans to have classes for younger kids on topics like bookmaking. She and her husband got a small business loan to launch the shop, and they'll soon start a Kickstarter campaign to help bridge the gap between their savings and the loan.
They aim to open by April 30, which is Independent Bookstore Day.
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