Today, I traveled all the way from my home in Pudong to the Gubei on a mission to buy my favorite childhood books for Liam and Clara. I had recently complained to a friend that I could not find a good selection of Dr. Seuss or other books I cherished as a child in Shanghai. She suggested that I try the Carrefour in Gubei before resorting to getting the books shipped from the U.K, U.S. or Canada.

To my surprise and delight, I discovered a small but lovely offering of my beloved books when I arrived. Among the classics, I found a ton of Dr. Seuss (my favorite) paperbacks, the Clifford the Dog series and a handful of Curious George books. I also saw Thomas the Train, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Little Einstein books and many other modern favorites. I did not have time to check out the books for older children but there seem to be many familiar titles.

Over-excited, I bought 500 RMB worth of books for Liam. This hefty price tag was due to my extremely large booty rather than over-inflated prices. In fact, I think most of the books cost about the same (or just a little more) than the US. It is certainly cheaper to buy these books at our local Carrefour than to pay the shipping charges for Amazon. The only glitch for me is that the two Carrefour shops in Pudong that I frequent (Thumb Plaza and Jingqiao) do not have English language children’s books.

Story-time at the Toscani household just got much more interesting!

If anybody knows of other good places to buy English children’s books, please let me know.