When I was a kid, I lived in a bookstore in Haines. It was an interesting, quirky sort of a bookstore, offering very serious tomes, mushroom manuals, books for the finding of flowers, and often when the customer came in the door she would be greeted (as it were) by a menacing glare from ten-year-old me, who did not want her to go buying something and forcing me to calculate a 4% sales tax.
You could also buy a multicolored felt pig there. I made it. It was there for some time. I guess someone must have bought it, eventually, for I don't seem to have it anymore.
Anyway. What I mean to say is, the Babbling Book is not like that. It is a real store, which makes a certain effort to provide things that its customers may actually want, and for that it is to be applauded. I think it's absolutely splendid that Haines now has a real bookstore, serving the needs of both the community and the tourists who pass through in the summer. It's a small store, but it makes good use of its space. If you're looking for something in particular, and it's not popular, you probably won't find it, but if you're just in a book mood, there's going to be something there worth buying, to take off with you and read in the rain in a tent above tree level, or in your house downtown in February, as the case may be.
Don't know the owners, but more power to them. read more