Photo by Rob Varela

Volunteer reader Pam Small, a former Adventures for Kids bookstore employee, shares a book with rapt children and their mothers during a story time at the Ventura bookstore, which is to close this month.

Photo by Rob Varela

Brenda Colborn of Santa Paula and son Wesley, 4 months, browse at Adventures for Kids. Some store patrons have been coming since they were kids.

Photo by Rob Varela

Customer Karen Bednorz of Ventura, left, hugs bookstore owner Barbara O'Grady, who is closing the 30-year-old store she's owned for two years.

Adventures for Kids, a specialty bookstore whose staff has helped parents and teachers foster a love of the written word in children, will close this month after a 30-year run, a victim of unrelenting competition from big-box retailers and online discounters, according to the owner.

Barbara O'Grady, a longtime patron who purchased the Ventura store in 2006, plans to shut down the business by July 31 to stanch increasing financial losses.

She has been telling shoppers that Adventures for Kids is sending a going-out-of-business e-mail to all her customers.

The decision, she said, was painful.

"It is a hard thing to get my mind around," O'Grady wrote in a recent e-mail to friends. "I can't afford to go through another summer like the last two."

A Ventura resident, O'Grady was managing the cafeteria at outdoor gear and clothing manufacturer Patagonia Inc. when she heard late in 2005 that Adventures for Kids was for sale. Jody Fickes Shapiro, who opened the store in 1978, wanted to retire and intended to close the shop if she could not find a buyer.

With lots of enthusiasm but no book-retailing experience, O'Grady, then 51, left a 20-year job with Patagonia, a company often listed among the country's best employers, and bought the business at 3457 Telegraph Road. She declined to say what she paid or how the deal was financed, but said operating the store was tough going from the start.

"Basically, I can't compete with some of these in bookselling so, you know, I had to make a decision," O'Grady said. "Amazon.com, I think, is every bookseller's biggest competitor: No sales tax, free shipping and about 40 percent off on books. I can't compete with that."

In a story last month, Publishers Weekly, a book publishing trade journal, quoted O'Grady as saying that she could not find financing and that she bought Adventures for Kids "more from an emotional point of view than a financial point of view." It also reported that O'Grady said the store had been grossing only $300 a day recently, but needed $1,200 daily to break even. O'Grady acknowledged the accuracy of the information, but said she wished it had not gotten out.

"Oh, yeah, my stomach hurts all the time," she said of the financial strain. "I'm certainly not very happy about it."

Longtime tenant, lots of titles

Adventures for Kids has occupied the 2,700-square-foot building next to Pacific View mall for 21 of its 30 years. The store has an inventory of more than 80,000 titles, along with an array of educational toys, games, CDs, DVDs, audiobooks, Spanish-language publications and books written for adults.

The store's focus has always been to increase the amount of time children spend reading for enjoyment, O'Grady said.

The store's 10 part-time employees work with teachers to stock the books being discussed in class and search for other books that will pique students' interest. Many of the employees became avid readers at the store as children.

A longtime customer, Patty Coats of Ventura, said a CSU Channel Islands education professor recommended Adventures for Kids to her when she was studying to become a teacher. She has been taking her son, Sammy, there almost since he was born. He starts second grade this fall.

"This is a real loss, definitely," Coats said. "They have great puppets, they have great toys, great music. It's a place to sit down and read a book and hear stories and play with trains. I mean, I'm a big supporter of Amazon, but Amazon is nothing like Adventures for Kids."

Store founder Shapiro could not be reached for comment.

Taking it one step at a time

To boost business, O'Grady stayed open more evenings and planned frequent story hours and game nights at the store. O'Grady, who has begun a going-out-of-business sale, said Adventures for Kids gift certificates must be used before the store closes. Book Sense gift cards purchased at the store may be used at other bookstores, but other stores will not honor Adventures for Kids gift certificates, she said.

O'Grady said she is not sure what she will do after she closes the store, adding, "You know, I have to get through this first."

While she said she hopes to be out of the building by the end of the month, it might take a little longer.

"You know, it's painful enough. I don't want to drag it out," she said, adding that the building's owners are understanding.

Independent bookstores flourished until the mid-1990s, when Barnes & Noble, Borders and other big chains began opening large numbers of stores, offering vast selections and discounted prices, said Meg Smith, chief marketing officer of the American Booksellers Association in Tarrytown, N.Y., representing more than 1,900 independents nationwide.

Mass merchandisers like Costco Wholesale Corp., Target Corp. and Wal-Mart Stores Inc.'s Sam's Club intensified the competition, especially for sales of best-sellers, she said. Amazon and other online booksellers discounted prices even further, while making it easier to shop from home. Brick-and-mortar retail is tough, Smith said, because store owners have limited control of costs.

Costs can escalate

"Stores that own their own buildings are probably in a better position because if you don't have to renegotiate your lease, you have some control over your occupancy costs," Smith said. "Occupancy costs can kill any retail business.

"The margins in books are not huge. You can't necessarily make up for high occupancy costs by selling more books at a low margin. You only get so much."

Still, business has stabilized over the past few years for independent bookstores with sound financing that have carved out solid niche markets, Smith said. She noted that the ABA has added 100 members in each of the past three years. Today's successful stores concentrate on being places where people want to shop and really knowing what their customers want. Competition, she said, is not just about price.

"The independent bookstores that are opening now, the ones that are really doing well, are marketing themselves in a different kind of way," Smith said. "They're not just relying on being there to have the books that you happen to want to buy, but really buying smart, really catering to their customers and really focusing on what they do best, providing the value that you can't find in other kinds of places where you can buy books."

O'Grady's daughter, Crystal Parish, has been helping her run Adventures for Kids over the past few months. Both will miss it after it closes, and they believe many Ventura County residents will, too.

"I just think it's unfortunate for the community to lose this. I think it's a real asset," O'Grady said. "That's what breaks my heart."

On the Net:

http://www.adventuresforkids.com