Past, Present and Future

ABOUT A CHILDREN'S PLACE BOOKSTORE

A Children’s Place Bookstore opened its doors to Portland families more than forty years ago and has been helping to raise readers ever since. A Children’s Place has been through a few changes over the past decades: expansions, contractions, and relocations, but it’s still pretty much the same as it was when Lynn Kelly and Jan Bruton started up in a small store front on Broadway in 1974. Just ask Lynn’s daughter, Kirsten. She remembers coming to A Children’s Place when she was a child and now she’s part of our stroller-pushing crowd, bringing her own twin daughters by to visit every once in a while. And we’re happy to say we’ve got a handful of other moms that come in from time to time and tell us they remember coming in with their mothers when they were kids.

Since the time that Lynn and Jan started out, the store has been through a couple of different owners. In 2003, the present owner, Pam Lewis, bought the store and later relocated to its present location on Fremont Street in the Beaumont neighborhood.