Not so very long ago..
Not so very long ago from now, on a dirt road, in River John, Pictou County, on the north shore of Nova Scotia, Canada a wife asked her husband to build some shelves in an old granary & he did! Perhaps there are word elves on those shelves — who knows?
MEET THE DREAMERS & OWNERS
Writer, poet, educator, Sheree Fitch & husband Gilles Plante, a retired CBC cameraman and ENG producer & carpenter live on the hobby farm Happy Doodle Do with horses, hens, a donkey named Willow, a cat named Pippy Longstocking, dogs named Burns and Whimsy and a few lambs in the summer.
Sheree’s passion for books and Gilles the builder‘s love of making things, their combined commitment to rural coastal Atlantic Canada and community led them to dream of opening Mabel Murple’s Book Shoppe and Dreamery.
Yes, a seasonal indie book shoppe and fresh air experience on a dirt road!
The books were located in the restored Granary next to the hundred year old barn. Part of the original farmhouse on their 99 acre property, is a peek a boo house – a glimpse into the purple world of Mabel Murple, one of Sheree’s best loved characters.
Yes, you are still invited to peek in!
Sheree & Gilles
Book Shoppe
Art By Sydney Smith
But… What’s a Dreamery?
Art By Sydney Smith
“What happened to a world in which we can sit with the people we love so much and have slow conversations about the state of our heart and soul, conversations that slowly unfold, conversations with pregnant pauses and silences that we are in no rush to fill?
How did we create a world in which we have more and more and more to do with less time for leisure, less time for reflection, less time for community, less time to just… be?”
Omid Safi
“The Disease of Being Busy.”
Dreamery is a real but rare word…
NOUN : rare
1. A place where a person dreams or is likely to dream.
2
. That which is dreamed or imagined.
Origin : Early 19th century; earliest use found in Blackwood’s Magazine. From dream + -ery.
Sheree Fitch read her first book in an oak tree in her paternal Grandmother’s front yard. The outdoors, nature, literacy and literature have been connected ever since.
We hope you will take time with friends and family or a book or writing journal and enjoy natural space outside our shoppe. Our pasture has 5 picnic tables, 2 reading nooks, a story wagon. Listen to wind chimes and leaves rustle. Spot Willow the donkey and her horse friends beyond the fence. Bring a picnic. Rug Hooking. Knitting needles. Board games. We hope this is a place for poetry, conversations, for stories, for making friends and making memories.
Willow the Donkey
When you visit Mabel Murple’s, our dreamery is your dreamery
And really, who’s Mabel Murple?
Art By Sydney Smith
It’s quite a story. A long story.
What if … you come visit, find out the whole truth about this fictional picture book character
Sheree and Gilles named their book shoppe after her for a reason.
For now, a few facts about Mabel Murple
She was first born in the book Toes in My Nose, published by Doubleday Canada in 1987 and illustrated by Molly Lamb Bobak.
She’s had three different lives.
She has travelled the world.
She’s got friends. She even met Mr. Dressup.
Her Teddy bear’s name is Snickerknickerbox.
She loves tongue twisters.
And books.
NOT just children’s books either…so that’s why the shoppe’s filled with books for all ages.
Mabel Murple …she’s quite the purple character.
She does NOT like purple prose.
She’s a pretty picky persnickety particular reader.
Art By Sydney Smith