When Michelle Wolett wanted to encourage her mother to read more back in 2016, she decided to wrap up gifts that her mom was only allowed to open once she reached the corresponding page number in hopes it would get her to finish the book through encouragement and incentive by bringing the story to life. Sound familiar?

As it turns out, her mom loved it and kept asking her for more reading experiences with more books and soon she was reading almost as fast as Michelle could plan them. Michelle felt many readers would love the experience of feeling like their book was being brought to life and this was an opportunity missing in the book world. And with that, Once Upon a Book Club was born!

When Once Upon a Book Club launched in July 2016, it was exclusively focused on women's historical fiction. Books such as these had some of the most heightened moments that made the gifts feel that much more important to the reader. From Martha Hall Kelly's Lilac Girls to Karin Tanabe's The Gilded Years to Simone St. James Lost Among the Living, historical fiction was the cornerstone for our boxes.

The first gifts were entirely hand-wrapped in Michelle's living room with the help of family and friends. Those original boxes were a labor of love and what began as a tiny idea soon blossomed into a company.

Quickly, Michelle and her team began to look to contemporary, mystery, and even magical realism for the adult boxes before branching into Young Adult, Tween, and the original one-time boxes which exclusively worked to bring beloved holidays to life for readers across the globe.

Today, all our boxes feature a variety of genres and themes. Our dream is to give readers books they may not have picked up on their own but discover they love something outside their comfort zone! Many of our One-Time Boxes are themed around popular books and book-to-movie (or television) adaptations such as Bridgerton and Wicked! In addition to our original box style which we offer as Adult and Young Adult, we now offer Mini Boxes (containing 2-3 gifts), Lite Boxes (new releases + paper items that evoke the five senses), and more!

Our boxes are shipped in the cutest shipping box on the market–they're shaped like a book! Perfect for gift giving or keeping on your shelf after you finish the experience, you won't find another like our signature whimsical packaging.

Paired with each reading experience is a collection of book club materials that will make you the star of your local book club. Discussion questions to consider as you read, an immersion card that may contain a recipe, activity, or other corresponding item relating to the story, a custom-designed quote print, bookmark, and collectible vinyl sticker to match the featured book. Select boxes even contain bonus content like conversations with the author and signed bookplate stickers to add into your copy of the book.

Each book selection in our monthly subscriptions is a newly released book that our team read and loved. Each book is hand-stickered with "Open Your Gift" sticky notes on the exact sentence that the reader should open their gift!

The gifts have been carefully curated, designed, wrapped, and packaged by our team. Custom-designed gift packaging is created to match the theme of the selected book and you'll find 3-5 gifts per box that are each labeled with page numbers. Only open the gifts when you reach the corresponding page, as the item inside the packaging is something described inside the story! tems can be any number of things from home decor, jewelry, kitchenwares, accessories, beauty products, games, and more! The majority of these items are customized by our team to ensure that the experience is not only immersive, but one-of-a-kind. So many of our products are exclusive to our brand and you won't be able to find the same one anywhere else.

In the decade that Once Upon a Book Club has been creating reading experiences, one thing stays consistent: our team's love of reading. Each box continues to be a labor of love and we consider ourselves so lucky that we have been able to bring these boxes to life for readers for nearly ten years!

What's next for OUABC you may be wondering? Only time will tell, but we can promise that whatever it is, it will be absolutely magical.