Old School

Bring a little analog fun to the life of your favorite kid. The enterprising folks at Blue Manatee Children’s Bookstore and Decafé—Oakley’s own children’s lit palace—have created the Blue Manatee Boxes online gift shop, combining their love of reading with low-tech play. For the kid whose room is filled with whirly, beeping, and otherwise noisy toys, the boxes provide old-fashioned, quiet, crafty joy. Each package contains some of the shop’s most popular books, plus “playable” packing materials like compostable peanuts (which can be sculpted together when wet), a crayon, and of course the box itself (cardboard spaceship, anyone?). Bonus: Included in each box is a customized idea page with a themed sketch created by the books’ own authors and illustrators. Build a box on the shop’s dedicated website or choose one of their carefully curated themed collections.  bluemanateeboxes.com