Northshire Bookstore Manchester Center Vermont

You’re never alone
When you have a book
Even when it’s one you thought
You’d never give a second look
Through insipid insomnia
Round the hobble of grief
When you hope to find
A wee bit of relief
Indoors at night
Outdoors in day
When tail-waggers
Refuse to obey
When you hunger to pinpoint
A piece of history
Or when you wish to solve
A little life mystery
When you hope to whip up
More than burnt toast
When you require a laugh
Like you’re at your own roast
For the times you feel
The need to create
Or perchance weather
How not to be late
To visit a gallery
Atop your lusty lap
Or possibly fill
The poetry gap
To lift your spirits
And get away
Even if it’s for
A moment in the day
When you long to meet
Bestsellers and first timers
Then revisit the classics
Without the whiners
To learn a language
Maybe a new skill
Perhaps discover
There’s more to your will
To meet characters
You never would have met
If you hadn’t cracked a book
On a friend’s heartfelt bet
To consider a change
Based on your gut
A pursuit to climb out of
The same old rut
To bury your nose
In a graphic novel
To visit the children’s section
Without gratuitous grovel
To step out of life
And into another
To loan a book
To a long lost brother
To comb through reference
And gain new insight
Whatever your preference
Foothold watertight
To drive a few nails
Then dance about the room
Ponder what design entails
There’s no need to assume
To a grow a garden
And reap its reward
Then get back to nature’s
Stupendous smorgasbord
To open your mind
And feed your soul
Suck out the rind
Sing with a bowl
To come for air
Or so to speak
A day has a way
Of becoming a week

Winning Entry Junior Poem

Two Continents, Two Children, Two Horses
By Anastasia Arvin-DiBlasio, age 10, Homeschool

An Arab horse boy
Slim & brown, Runs
Through the streets
Of an Arab town.
This little boy
In-spir-ed me to care
For my equine family.
The power of feeling
Needed is good.
I hope to stand where Agba stood, and care
And love a little baby
Horse and run my hand
Through his mane so coarse.
Then the Vermont horse
And the Vermont girl run
Down to the Arab boy
In the Arab town.

Based on the character “Agba” from Marguerite Henry’s King of the Wind.

Winning Entry Junior Essay

My Love of Books
By Ramsay Eyre, age 8 Dorset Elementary School

Books are my favorite things. Books inspire me like nothing else. The first books I read were Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown and The Buck Stops Here: The Presidents of the United States by Alice Provensen. I read them to people at the Post Office, people at the doctor’s office, everywhere. That’s how much I loved them. Now all books, especially the works of J. K. Rowling and Kennth C. Davis stand close by as my eager companions. Books are the ones that taught me most of the things that I know now. But one thing is clear: I just love, love books!!!

Selected Designs for official Northshire Bookstore Bookmarks. Congratulations!

Artists:
Nasier Camp, 7, Northshire Day School – After School
Nathan Gourd, 10, Manchester Elementary School
Emma Gras, 9, Maple Street School
Sydney Jennison, 10, New York, NY
Jaidon Lalor, 9, Manchester Elementary School
Nicole Mackson, 3, Homeschool
Cam Marcellus, 10, Flood Brook Union School
Grace Provost., 10, Manchester Elementary School
Tatiana Russo, 10, Molly Stark School
Benjamin Schlangen Park, 5, Mettawee Community School
Willa Anthony Summers., 7, Providence, RI
David Webb, 10, Molly Stark School