Lucy Duncan, FGC Bookstore Manager, and Graham Garner, former manager of the Quaker Bookstore in London, England, on their wedding day. Lucy and Graham-who met through QUIP (see boxed article on next page)-were married under the care of Central Philadelphia MM at London Grove Meeting, London Grove, PA, on April 28, 2001.

n June 6, 1993 I had the great privilege of seeing a dream of mine materialize-the opening of the Story Monkey Children's Bookstore in Omaha. From the beginning it was a community project. My uncle came from Atlanta and spent long days putting in new windows and making an office in the building we had found. Many friends came and painted the walls. Another friend designed a logo and made a papier-mache "story monkey." Right after we opened, a friend from California came and guided 12 children in painting a mural of a jungle on the "story room" wall. Customers would bring me monkeys all the time for my extensive monkey collection. Artists from the community would design the huge store windows we had. The store was a gift for the community and the community was visible in the store.

I wanted my bookstore to be a sanctuary for all children. I had story time three times a week. We sang songs, read books, told stories, did hand rhymes and art projects. I had a mother-daughter book club. We had a storytelling series that would crowd the store with families. And the glue that bound it all together was the love of books-adults and children coming together to discover the worlds opened to them on the written page. I tried to make the Story Monkey a place that would be as lively and imaginative as the worlds children would be invited to on the pages of the books they would find there.

The people who found my bookstore were amazing. There was the teacher of English as a Second Language to 6-10 year olds who would do majestic puppet shows with her students. There was the socialist philosophy professor who would come every Saturday to equip her children with feminist stories or science fiction for the birthday parties they would attend. She wrote an essay that was published about the dangers of overgrown capitalism in which she used my bookstore as an example of the endangered community-responsive business. There were stay-at-home dads, lesbian grandmothers and parents with their newly-adopted children. I would usually remember what they had bought and point out something new that might interest them. In turn, my customers would tell me about a new book that had helped them assuage their child's fears or affirm the experience of a student or helped them to see the world a little differently. They opened their lives to me and I helped them to find books that would open them to new worlds.

I consider that the Story Monkey was a wonderful success even though it didn't grow fast enough to sustain me. We closed the doors in December of 1998, despite last minute offers to save it. The way had opened for me to come to Philadelphia to run the FGC Bookstore. My work here is infused with that same sense of community. Though I don't have families traipsing in for story time or teachers coming to talk shop with me, the world of Quaker books sustains our faith in the same way that the children's books I sold at the Story Monkey helped those children to grow. I have wonderful conversations on the phone with people new to Quakerism or just starting a meeting, with authors who have a new book, or with enthusiastic and determined women interested in promoting our faith to the wider world. Every year I get the wonderful opportunity to create a Quaker walk-in store for a week at the Gathering. Here too there is wonderful coming together of community. Many volunteers shelve and pack up books, authors read from their books, friends have even baked cookies. And through it all there are stories told of how a book changed someone's perspective or a recommendation is passed along for a book about how to clerk a meeting or deal with enhancing the quality of meeting for worship.

Quakers are geographically spread out and the written word helps connect us, helps to develop our faith and our community. Quakers Uniting in Publications connects me with other booksellers and publishers involved in the ministry of the written word (connects me so well in fact that I've married one of these booksellers.) I find great delight in assisting in the ministry of the written word and participating in the Quaker community in this way.