Best of Boston

Like anything well loved by a child, this Brookline Village institution has become charmingly worn around the edges, the creaky floors a testament to decades of small roaming feet. It eschews the chain bookstores’ gloss (and their piles of trinketry and TV tie-ins) for shelf after wonderful shelf of kids’ titles—more than 21,000 in all. The shop may be considering spiffing up for its 30th anniversary this year, but here’s hoping it’ll always be a tad dog-eared: After all, that’s how bookworms mark a place they want to go back to.