New to the Old West Mall, but not new to many of Bragg Creek’s residents, Monkeyshines Children’s Books and Toys has arrived here in the hamlet. After enjoying success for most of the last 25 years in Marda Loop in Calgary, the shop has been transplanted. The densification of Marda Loop and the continued construction, road closures and parking challenges in the area, led to the family- owned and operated shop relocating to a more welcoming and peaceful environment. The focus of Monkeyshines remains the same, however, offering to its community ways to support developing children’s imaginations, stimulate minds and bring fun and entertainment to the child in all of us.
Proudly boasting ‘no batteries required’ for the entire store inventory, Monkeyshines manager Linda Dear explains how her family has hung onto the ways they themselves were raised, “Books and the stories they share are timeless… most of the lessons we learned and what we were taught, are still relevant now.”
While reading books is no longer a child’s main source of information, the store’s owners strongly believe that their minds are much happier reading and using their imagination, than by watching videos or being entertained passively from the internet. Similar to watching sports versus playing sports – it’s not difficult to determine which is a better example of truly experiencing the sport. The same goes for the stories shared in classic, as well as more recent, children’s story books.
Monkeyshines is one of the last remaining independently owned children’s bookstores in the area. Linda and her family hope that parents will remember the joy and thrill they had as children reading, and want that experience for their kids as well. The convenience of online shopping has slowly eroded away at the brick-and-mortar shops of the past, but there’s no replacing the fun of browsing through aisles of interesting toys and flipping through pages of books to choose which feels like the right one! Monkeyshines believes the shopping experience simply is not the same.
Bringing Monkeyshines closer to home was an easy decision for Linda and her family. Considering the limited access to child specific products in the area, they also see it as providing a needed service to this vibrant, young community. Many residents have already expressed excitement at the prospect of not having to travel outside of the hamlet of Bragg Creek for a gift or reward for their children and friends. Linda has already found the high volume of passersby, whether visiting as tourists or utilizing the vast array of trails and nature experiences, to be very friendly and happy to deal with new customers.
“By far, we have people from so many places all around the world visiting here. I really enjoy finding out where people are from and what their connection to the Bragg Creek area is,” Linda says, “they really like our unique products and the quality of the toys we bring in.” Many visitors promise to return for future birthday and Christmas holiday shopping, which gives Linda a wide smile.
Always maintaining a close connection with the community, the shop owners are certainly familiar with giving back. Numerous products sold in the store are crafted in a small village in Guatemala where the owners’ family volunteers at a community dental clinic they helped establish within the Alberta-based organization Dentistry For All. From carved wooden toys and keychains, hand woven and crocheted frisbees and bracelets, 100% of the proceeds go back to the women and families in the village. This helps them continue to operate and own their businesses for the foreseeable future.
Further proceeds from the profit from Monkeyshines feeds the owners’ family endowment fund, the Twin Starfish Fund, which supports education and health projects in Canada and abroad. Several Alberta-based organizations have benefited from grants in the past, such as Foothills hospital NICU, Autism Calgary, and Children’s cancer charities. As Monkeyshines is an advocate of local community building, next on the list of organizations the owners’ family plans to support is the Bragg Creek Trails Association and other community projects in the Bragg Creek area.
Linda looks forward to welcoming you and your family to visit Monkeyshines… and watch for her grandkids George and Juno who have been known to sell fresh squeezed lemonade in the parking lot in front of the store.
