Anne Irish, former children's bookstore owner and executive director of the Association of Booksellers for Children, died on January 26. She was 78.
Irish was a founder and owner of Pooh Corner Bookstore in Madison, Wis., which opened its doors in 1976 and sold children's books, toys and educational items. She had several business partners until selling Pooh Corner in 1994, when it became an Education Station location. She was also involved in the founding of the Association of Booksellers for Children in 1985 and was its executive director from 2001 to 2006. (ABC is now part of the American Booksellers Association.)
When she stepped down as head of ABC, Irish told Shelf Awareness, "I felt that I had taken ABC to a level where it was time for somebody with new blood to take it to the next level." Her accomplishments included, she said, making ABC "a recognized association" within the bookselling community; coordinating with the ABA and Children's Book Council on children's programming at BookExpo; making the auction and dinner at BookExpo "a really big event"; changing the catalogue's focus to frontlist; and introducing the E.B. White Readaloud Award.
In an obituary, her family remembered, in part: "As a quiet activist, Anne was a positive influence on so many people--from the women she worked with and for at the Foothill Free Clinic in Pasadena and the generations of children who learned the joys of reading at Pooh Corner on Madison's Monroe Street, to her many bookselling compatriots when she was director of the Association of Booksellers for Children and her softball and painting buddies who zoomed together during the Covid pandemic. While her husband, Chuck, is seen as a revered professor by hundreds of foreign students he helped bring to Madison for the study of law, it is Anne that they all looked up to more as their American mom. Anne raised her children, Rob Irish and Marney Hoefer, to have a profound respect for each individual, irrespective of sexual orientation, race, or economic circumstances. Anne's patience and creativity were an important reason for Marney and Rob's understanding and respect for the world around them. Chuck has lost his soulmate, his life coach, and the source of almost all of his happiest and most pleasant memories. Anne and Chuck have been looking forward to a post-Covid time when they could belly up to the bar to laugh with the bartender and the friends and strangers around them."
The family noted: "A celebration of Anne's life is being planned for the late summer/early fall of 2021. Gifts in remembrance of Anne may be sent to Middleton Outreach Ministry, Waunakee Neighborhood Connection and Planned Parenthood; or simply do something nice for somebody, preferably a stranger, and then smile thinking of Anne. Careful--it may be habit forming."