Volunteering at the Emporium!
I can’t believe I’ve been volunteering for 8 months already, it feels like just yesterday I was walking through the doors of this magical bookshop for the first time! I have seen many changes to the shop throughout my time here, slowly introducing more YA and LGBTQ+ books as well as expanding the bookshelves! I have seen many different themes they follow through the year - my favourite being Christmas time!
Now, you may be wondering what I do as a volunteer. Reviews! I have written many of them. They range from modern YA books, to murder mystery and to fantasy- all, which are my favourite genres of mine. I have written reviews in different formats: short reviews on little cards to go around the book shop, decorating it to match the theme on Canva and obviously writing long reviews for fun! I also get to read proof copies of books sometimes even before they are published!
As I had mentioned before, my favourite time during the book shop was Christmas. This is because it was jam packed with Christmas decorations that I got to help put up! I remember there was so much tinsel around the shelves, doors, windows, it was just everywhere! Every year a special massive Christmas house gets put up on display with cute Christmas books and decorations on it. We had to go to the basement to get out multiple Christmas boxes filled with decorations. I loved it during Christmas because the atmosphere in there was just so friendly, happy, and very Christmassy!
Another time, I helped film a TikTok promoting multiple sea themed book which was great fun. We went on a hunt to find sea animal puppets and also had a little trouble finding the right music, but we got there eventually. We found some sea themed wallpaper for the background and managed to find some object to go along with it in the basement.
I also help tidy the shop such as re-organize the YA bookshelf and tidy the picture books which often gets muddled up because of the children. The puppet stand also needed cleaning and re-organizing and so did the tiny finger puppet basket which was really cute.
One day, I got lucky and came on a day when the shop was filming a podcast! I got to sit back and relax as I watched 2 fabulous teenage podcasters interview some authors and it was absolutely fantastic. It was interesting to understand what goes on in the authors mind whilst writing a book and to see what happens behind the book shop. The interviewers were also brilliant, asking the questions with such confidence and experience.
- E (D of E Volunteer)
