Ages 4-14 · Book 2, Belonging · 4,299 places
Bookstores and Gift
Wholesale for bookshops and gift retail, with shelf cards written for the person actually standing there choosing.
Built on Ellis Abel and the Scary Playground — “Being brave means showing up anyway.” A character series, not a curriculum with a worldview attached.
The five sessions
- Session 1
Scope: age bands, group sizes, session length, leader experience
- Session 2
Materials: story, leader script, family take-home, printable pack
- Session 3
Train the team — one session, with the hard cases rehearsed
- Session 4
Run one term and capture what the children actually did
- Session 5
Review, adjust the pack, and set the next term
Questions leaders ask
Is bookstores and gift in your area a religious program?
No. Ellis Abel is a character series. Each volume carries one named core value — this one is belonging — and the story does the teaching. There is no doctrine in it, nothing to opt out of, and it is used in public schools, libraries and secular programs as readily as anywhere else.
What ages does this work for?
Ages 4-14. The story is read aloud, so a child who cannot read yet is fully in it, and the discussion prompts are written in two bands so one adult can hold a mixed-age room.
What does a your area licence include?
The volumes, the session material, leader scripts, family take-home pages, and the right to run it under your own program name. Terms are set per organisation and per size, so there is no single-price page.
Do we have to use your branding?
No. You keep your name, your leaders and your program. The books are the spine, not the sign over the door.
The rules that make it work
It is a character story, not a social skills assessment
No child is scored, graded or sorted into a social tier. The room gets shared language and a move to practise, and nothing about a child is recorded.
Never make the left-out child the project
A program that visibly organises itself around one child has told the whole room who that child is. Everything here is run for everyone.
One person, not the whole group
Joining a group is the hardest version of the task and the one children are always told to do. One person, chosen beforehand, is the version that works.
Difference is the asset, said plainly
Not "everyone is special", which children correctly hear as nothing. The specific thing that makes this child the odd one out is named, and then used.
Adults go first
An adult describing their own time at the fence gives permission that no amount of encouragement does.
Ask the new child whether it worked
Not the volunteers, not the popular children, not the staff. The person who was alone is the only reliable measure of whether a belonging program works.
Bookstores by metro area
Northeast
- Bookstores — New York, NY
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- Bookstores — Waterbury, CT
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- Bookstores — Manchester, NH
- Bookstores — Trenton, NJ
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- Bookstores — Erie, PA
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Midwest
- Bookstores — Chicago, IL
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South
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West
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- Bookstores — Maui, HI
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- Bookstores — Mount Vernon, WA
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- Bookstores — Walla Walla, WA
- Bookstores — Carson City, NV
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