We were so excited to have Emily reach out and ask if she could join us for a few hours for some work experience in the bookshop, and helping out in the warehouse. As part of her school learning students are encouraged to set up work experience somewhere, and we thought Emily showed such professionalism and great initiative from the start.
As soon as she arrived (with freshly baked, still warm lemon cake in hand for the team!) we knew we were in for a treat. Emily not only is a huge fan of books with over 200 in her home library, she's also had experience with warehousing thanks to her Dad's job. She was the perfect combination to slot straight into our team and helped so much in lots of different areas - from sorting out the kid's area of the bookshop which had gotten a bit chaotic, to doing a picking run in the warehouse!
While Emily was here she was surprised by a completely coincidental visit by local amazing author, Graci Kim! Emily had earlier been raving about getting an early review copy of Graci's incredible book, Dreamslinger, and was excited to chat with Graci about Book 2, Royalslinger, which comes out at the end of this month.
We also loved having Emily share her expertise with YA and middle grade fiction - she wrote a few reviews for us and our customers, and even made a collection for you of some of her favourite YA recommendations. No doubt you'll see her name pop up on some upcoming reviews on our newsletters and social media! What a star.
At the end of the day we decided to send Emily home with some review copies to read and report back on, as well as two books she'd been eyeing up - The Raven's Eye Rebellion by Kiwi author Claire Mabey, and Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo (the second sequels to two amazing first novels).
Thanks Emily for joining us! We absolutely loved having you help out the Book Hero team, and hope that you had an amazing time too!