PETER MOORE was a not-so-silent partner for about 25 years, until he became an active manager of the store in 2004. While a full-time professor of mathematics at NKU during those 25 years, Peter kept up with children's books, connected with authors and illustrators, met the store's visitors, and attended children's literature festivals with Tina. After Tina’s passing, Peter took up ownership of the store and continues carrying on Tina’s passion. Peter can guide you in any book suggestion and genuinely enjoys meeting with every customer. With the teacher still planted in his heart (and not going anywhere), you can expect that he will sit down to read and talk to our young customers quite often, and may occasionally include a math problem.

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CAROLINE STINE, who is originally from Ft. Thomas, Kentucky, and ‘02 graduate of Highlands High School, has spent her artistic career as an actor, director, and costume designer. She has worked in Indianapolis, Indiana; Arezzo, Italy; and Boulder, Colorado, before circling back and returning to Cincinnati to produce and direct devised physical theatre. She obtained her BA in Theatre and English at Butler University and her MFA in Contemporary Performance from Naropa University. She is the artistic director and creator of InBocca Performance, a company that specializes in bleeding edge devised theatre in the heart of Cincinnati. Her work has been performed in all sorts of bizarre places from old tunnels, the Cincinnati Fringe Festival, Boulder Fringe, and the museums of Russia.

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While Caroline has spent most of her career working in theatre, she has also spent large chunks of it working with books! While living in Indianapolis, Caroline managed Big Hat Books, an independent bookstore. She has also had a long and storied career with Barnes and Noble, both in Cincinnati and in Boulder, CO. Her favorite children's book of all time is: The Little Mouse, the Red Ripe Strawberry, and the Big Hungry Bear by Audrey and Don Wood.

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CHRIS KLEEMEIER moved to Fort Thomas with her family in 1982. Often, she walked up the Avenue with her children to the original Blue Marble Books to revel in what one customer described as "organized chaos." Beginning in 1984, she sold Cabbage Patch doll clothes at the store, dressed windows and teddy bears, sewn curtains, beanbags, monkeys, and helped in setting up the Great Green Room, a re-creation of the room featured in the book Goodnight Moon. She will try to find the perfect book that will capture your children's imagination and that will put them under the same spell cast on her children and countless others who have visited Blue Marble Books.

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BETSY GROEN has been a friend of Blue Marble Books for almost 40 years. While working as an elementary librarian, she began working with Tina to update her school’s collection. Betsy started working part-time at the store in 2001 after her district put their librarians back in the classroom. She missed working with books. Working at the store allowed her to still be around new books and the people who read, wrote, and illustrated them. She retired from teaching in 2014 and now volunteers in her district’s elementary libraries by maintaining their online card catalogs and processing their books. For Betsy, when providing suggestions for customers, it’s always about the child. What is the last book they read? What are their interests? She still has the true passion of a librarian.

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HOLLY ALDER has taught writing since 1973. She directed the writing certification program at Principia College and taught writing classes for both the University of Cincinnati and Writer's Digest University. She has degrees in English, Education, and Psychology. She won a National Society of Arts and Letters honor award for her first play. Two of her books were published by F&W, Writer’s Digest’s parent company. Holly started working at Blue Marble Books early in 2015. Her first love has always been children’s literature—everything from picture books to young adult, and she has collected more than 6,000 hardcover books. Which she has mostly read. In recent years, she’s also become an award-winning artist. Holly writes all of our book reviews and is the perfect source for any suggestion you may require.

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HANNAH GREGORY has been a lover of stories as long as she can remember, from enjoying the magic of James Thurber's Many Moons to reading fantasy books past her bedtime in middle school (and well into adulthood). She is a playwright, songwriter, and producer whose works often pay homage to her Kentucky roots and lyrical language. She is a multi-year award winner at the Cincinnati Fringe Festival, including the Producer's Pick (Descent, 2019) and the Critic's Pick (The Belle and Boone Helm, 2021; Wuthering, 2022). She holds a BFA from Northern Kentucky University. Her recent favorite reads are The Whalebone Theatre by Joanna Quinn and Demon Copperfield by Barbara Kingsolver. 

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AVERILL HOOVER is a sophomore at Highlands High School and has been a resident of Fort Thomas her entire life. She has been going to the Blue Marble since she was a child as it was a place she could embrace her love of reading. Outside of reading she is a writer and musician and strives to help people discover the amazing worlds trapped in books and symphonies.

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EMREL WOODY is a sophomore at Northern Kentucky University as a middle grades pre-major with a focus in English and Social Studies. In her free time she writes novels and reads a lot of young adult books. She can give a solid book recommendation to customers in the young adult genre, spanning from high fantasy to contemporary novels. She knows about books for young readers as well. She always recommends The Unwanteds series and Percy Jackson to middle school readers. She has hopes in the future to teach middle school students to love the creative side of them, and she hopes to have a novel in Blue Marble’s Teen room some day. 

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A.J. BALDWIN is the newest member of the Blue Marble Team. Originally from Montgomery, Alabama, A.J. has called Cincinnati home since 2017 after moving to the area to continue her career as an actor and playwright. She has BAs in Theater and History from Auburn University at Montgomery. A.J. has always been an avid reader, and has fond memories of reading under the blankets as a child. Now, she reads plays aloud to her black

cat, Jazper.