I’ve been living in the Little Portugal area of Toronto since 2019 and something about this neighbourhood felt right from the beginning. I’d been looking for a place to live, and I knew it as soon as I got off the 501 street car: this was where I wanted to live.
But my real estate agent and I miscommunicated and I had arrived for the condo showing, but she hadn’t. I called her to tell her I’d take it.
“But you haven’t even seen it yet,” she said.
“It’s okay. I love it.”
“I strongly recommend you see it,” she said.
(I saw it sure but I had already made up my mind lol).
The thing I love the most about living here is that it has allowed me a sense of community that I haven’t felt anywhere else.
That’s why I was so excited to hear that a children’s bookstore was opening in this neighbourhood — and on top of that it was being opened by an illustrator who makes picture books: Nadia Alam.
Of course I went literally on the second day of its opening.
Nadia is the illustrator of seven picture books, including the recently released Sarabeth’s Garage, and the upcoming Together for Mama, out June 23, 2026.
If you’re in Toronto, check out Nuts & Shells at 1596 Dundas Street West! And visit them on Instagram @nutsandshellsbookshop !
Nadia took the time to talk to me about what inspired her to open the bookstore and what’s ahead :)
Q & A with Nadia
Welcome to the neighourhood Nadia! What inspired you to open Nuts & Shells? And what helped you follow through from the first spark of the idea?
I think I am like a lot of book lovers, the fantasy of owning your own bookshop was always kind of floating around. There was no single inspiration to open Nuts & Shells; it is an accumulation of passions, opportunities, and circumstances overlapping with a lifelong love of reading. I became an illustrator after losing someone close to me during Covid. Their loss became the impetus for me to move towards a more creative path. Last year my father passed away, and similarly, it opened the door again for me to interrogate my life and make changes to move further along that path. Any follow-through is just my pig-headed determination and the encouragement of my family and friends.
Are there any parallels between how you approach your illustration work and running a bookstore — or are the differences more striking?
I hadn’t really thought about it, but yes, there are parallels for sure! The experience so far has been really creative, lots of creative problem solving, spatial visualization, pacing, and so on. When you get a manuscript you have these hard parameters you have to follow: page count, canvas dimensions, characters, and so on. How you meet those requirements is completely up to you and can be as creative as you like. I illustrate with a kind of peripheral vision of the final illustration in my mind’s eye. I rarely touch pencil to paper with a fixed composition in mind — I kind of wing it. That’s more or less what I did with the shop: I had my hard parameters and then went in and winged it.
In your wildest dreams, what does the future of Nuts & Shells look like?
In my wildest dreams it would be a place that just grows and learns alongside the community around it. A place where kids come to find their favourite books and create core book memories, where other illustrators come to admire the work of their peers, and where my own kids work after school and during their summer breaks.
What’s been the most surprising thing since you opened?
How thrilling it is to see and hear a kid get pumped when they discover a book they like, or have heard of, or have wanted. I picture them going home and spending time with it — the book getting all wrinkled and soft around the corners, some real Velveteen Rabbit stuff. It makes me really happy.
Can you tell us about your next book, Together for Mama?
I loved working on Together for Mama. It is a book about postpartum depression. I have personal experience with PPD and I would have loved a book like this, particularly when I was having my second baby. I love Pooja’s writing and am proud to have been a part of this book, I hope it helps others talk about postpartum with the little people in their lives.
When is your official opening, and do you have anything exciting planned?
I am officially open now. I don’t really have anything exciting planned, to be honest — I’ll save that for my first birthday. A big “I made it ONE year!” bash. For now it’s doors open and catching my breath!