A Children's Place

About

Portland's oldest independent children's bookstore!

Story

A Children’s Place Bookstore opened its doors to Portland families more than forty years ago and has been helping raise voracious readers ever since. A Children’s Place has been through a few changes over the past decades: expansions, contractions, and re-locations, but it’s still pretty much the same as it was when Lynn Kelly and Jan Bruton started up in a small storefront 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 have a handful of other moms who 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 and is now under the proud stewardship of Pam Erlandson. The store recently moved to its present location on Fremont St. in the Irvington neighborhood after fifteen years in the Beaumont neighborhood.