Shakespeare and Co. Vienna Welcomes Hello Flutters
Shakespeare and Company
Welcomes Hello Flutters
My last full day in Vienna. I had a book appointment to keep.
I set this up before I even arrived. That is what it means to be an entrepreneur whose work is also her passion. The travel and the mission don't separate. They move together.
My mission is to spread the message of befriending our fear. And Hello Flutters is how I do that for children.
Today that mission walks into one of the most beloved independent bookstores in Vienna.
Shakespeare and Company Vienna.
Shakespeare and Company has been offering exclusively English literature since 1982 at Sterngasse 2 in the historic Ruprechtsviertel. The only bookshop in Vienna devoted solely to English books. Eccentric. Warm. Floor to ceiling books on every wall. The kind of bookstore that feels like it has been waiting for you.
Let yourself be found by a book.
Shakespeare and Company Vienna · Official MottoI walk in and introduce Hello Flutters.
The owner receives it with open arms. He holds it. Looks through it. Looks up at me with a smile.
My book now lives in Shakespeare and Company Vienna.
Right there on the children's shelf. Between Richard Scarry and First Words Flashcards. In a bookstore in the oldest part of Vienna that has been putting English books into the hands of readers for over forty years.
A children's book about fear written in California. Now living on a shelf in Vienna.
Hello Flutters has made it to Prague. And now to Vienna.
Research in early childhood development consistently shows that children who have language for their emotions demonstrate stronger self-regulation, greater resilience, and better social skills as they grow.
Books are one of the most powerful ways to give children that language. Not through explanation. Through story. Through a character who feels what they feel and shows them what to do with it.
That is the whole reason Hello Flutters exists. To give children that language early. Before the silence around fear becomes the wound itself.
I came here as a mother. As an author. As a mental health advocate who believes that a child who understands fear early has a head start on living fully.
Seeing Hello Flutters on that shelf in Vienna — between books that generations of children have loved — is one of the most quietly extraordinary moments of this entire trip.
I am absolutely grateful for every bookstore, every educator, every parent, and every child that this book finds its way to.
If you are in Vienna stop by Sterngasse 2.
Tell them Hello Flutters sent you.
The long way there always leads somewhere worth going.
A children's book about fear, courage, and the wisdom of the body. Written for children. Needed by all of us.
Get Hello FluttersBefriending your fear is where healing begins.
These stories are proof of that. Not theory. Not framework. Just the road, and what it asked of me.
Dr. Maria Grace Wolk · mariagracewolk.com