The Bucharest Bookshops Center and its recent projects

Super Stories from Bucharest

Corina Sabău, 10.02.2022, 14:00

Super stories from Bucharest is the title of an anthology that has been launched recently. It is the first book written by children and adolescents of Bucharest. It brings together stories that re-enliven the legends and the tales from the history of the city. The collection includes stories authored by the winners of the contest also dubbed Super stories from Bucharest. The contest was launched in early 2021.

With the support of Bucharest Municipality and ARCUB, Romania’s longest-lasting chain of bookshops, the Bucharest Bookshops Company, printed a few thousand copies of the anthology titled Super stories from Bucharest. The book is given out for free in all 40 bookshops as part of the Bucharest Bookshops Company. The initiators of Super stories from Bucharest are the Bucharest Bookshops Company jointly with Headsome Communication. The initiator and the coordinator of the project, Oana Boca Stănescu, is the president of Headsome Communication.

Oana Boca Stanescu:

This book was born as part of an event staged by the Bucharest Bookshops Company. As far as I’m concerned, I have been and still am inspired by the activities staged by the Bucharest Bookshops Company, an outlet that has been on the book market for more than 71 years now, I am impressed by their success, the Bucharest Bookshops Company has succeeded to stay close to all book lovers from around the capital city. In 2020, the Bucharest Bookshops Company was getting ready to celebrate 70 years since their foundation and, since we have been jointly carrying cultural projects for quite some time now, we were planning a rather ambitious schedule. However, the pandemic broke out and all the planned events were no longer possible, but still, we succeeded to carry some of the events through. One such event was an initiative to plant trees in Bucharest, as a sign of the fact that the Bucharest Bookshops Company has been close to the readers in the capital city for almost three generations and the company holds dear the future generation as well. The event I’m speaking about was staged in the Youth Park, there we organized that action of planting trees. And that’s how I got to hear stories about the Vale of Tears, about a submerged church, about the Cocioc Lake in the Youth Park, while me and other people younger than myself realized we didn’t know much about those places. And we realized that, perhaps, the younger generations are not very familiar with the stories and legends of Bucharest either. And that’s how we thought to initiate this project, by means of which we sought to re-enliven the legends and the stories of Bucharest. And, without the support and the enthusiasm of the Bucharest Bookshops Company, as the project running as Super stories from Bucharest is Bucharest Bookshops Brand, we would not have been able to carry it through, to materialize it. Fortunately, for quite a few years now we have been witnessing a revival of the literature for children, we’ve got quite a few living authors who write literature for children. I think it is the most marvelous thing that can happen on a book market, which is rather poor, as if you want to train new generations of readers, you need to draw them to reading in due time

Marieta Seba, the general manager of the Bucharest Bookshops Company, tells us how the project came into being.

This project, just as Oana Boca Stănescu said, was born as part of the tree-planting event we organized, jointly with the Bucharest Bookshops Company. In 2020 we had set for ourselves the task of celebrating the Bucharest Bookshops Company’s 70 anniversary in a rather festive way, staging a couple of events and being more public and communication-centered. Because of the pandemic, it was no longer possible for us to implement our ideas, so our collaborators came up with this idea, that of planting trees in the Youth Park. It was an event that also drew children, who turned up in large numbers. We saw children were brimming with joy as they were taking part in the event, so we thought of marking the Bucharest Bookshops Company’s 70th anniversary staging more than one event for that. So, we also thought of getting a booklet brought out. And we do hope for all that to be just the beginning of a project, to be run along many years from now and to develop into a wider-scope project, capable of getting as many schoolchildren as possible involved. In everything we have achieved so far it was about a lot of passion, a lot of heart we put into it, as that is also our slogan. Out of love for the book. For us, those with the Bucharest Bookshops Company, the financial aspect has never been a priority, every time we tried to do interesting and creative things, capable of representing us, even though there wasn’t enough funding for that.

Ioana-Alexandra Anastasiu, a pupil of Middle School number 280 in Bucharest, is one of the winners of the contest launched as Super Stories from Bucharest. Her story about the Capsa House has been included in the anthology that has recently been launched by the the Bucharest Bookshops Company with a similar title, Super Stories from Bucharest.

Ioana-Alexandra Anastasiu:

I registered, jointly with my Religion teacher, for an optional course themed Travelers through Bucharest. And during each class we were discussing the legends and the history of the buildings of Bucharest, so much so that, as soon as I’ve learned about this contest, Super Stories from Bucharest, I made my mind up to participate straight away, as I am passionate about the Romanian Language and History and I saw that as a fine opportunity for me to express my passions. I opted for writing about the Capsa House as it is one of Bucharest’s most elegant and most sumptuous buildings, it is a building that, in time, was visited by many personalities, especially at the time of La Belle Epoque. I have always admired this building and I really got my kicks out of being given the opportunity to write about it.

The project was successful and managed to arouse the interest of children and adolescents, so the organizers sought to strengthen the initiative and, in early 2022, they initiated the second edition of the story-writing contest.

(EN)