Built in 1902 as a grocer’s shop, the handsome red brick Twining building in Banbury Road, Summertown, with its eye-catching façade of fruit and flowers, has since housed a grocer, a wine and spirits merchant, Denton’s Cycles, a bathroom showroom and a pop-up Christmas shop.

Having undergone another transformation, it has just re-opened as the flagship UK branch of award-winning children’s publisher Barefoot Books, which has also moved its UK publishing offices from Bath to the same building.

For two decades Barefoot has been producing illustrated children’s books that celebrate storytelling, different cultures, human relationships and the natural world.

Its backlist stretches to more than 500 titles and they sell worldwide through their website and a network of ‘ambassadors’ who sell books in their communities, often to raise money for their local school or other good cause.

Barefoot’s two other bookshops are in Concord, Massachusetts, and inside the famous Manhattan toyshop FAO Schwarz. It also has publishing offices in the US.

What inspired Barefoot to come to Oxford was partly the city’s reputation as an educational and publishing centre, but also the potential of the building.

It has high ceilings, big windows, and plenty of room for activities that will include storytelling from a special throne, music, dance, puppetry, crafts, cookery and yoga.

Painted throughout in red, lime green and turquoise, it has been fitted with comfortable sofas and child-sized facilities such as washbasins.

The bookshelves are inspired by architecture from around the world and in the café food and drinks will be served from the windows of a storytellers’ caravan.

It is the near-magical power of storytelling that continues to inspire Barefoot’s co-founders, Nancy Traversy and Tessa Strickland.

Ms Traversy, a Canadian, met Ms Strickland, who is British, in London in 1992, when she had a three-month old baby and Ms Strickland had three young children.

They talked about the shortcomings of existing children’s books, many of which tended to have either, in Ms Traversy’s words: “a lot of style, but no substance” or to be well-written but visually dull.

Deciding there was a need for stimulating and beautiful illustrated children’s story books, they set up Barefoot Books.

Today Ms Traversy is the company’s chief executive, dividing her time between her homes in Massachusetts and Oxford, while Ms Strickland is editor-in-chief, based in Oxford.

Ms Traversy now has four children, all in their mid to late teens.

“The kids have always had all the manuscripts — they have even edited books,” she said.

Barefoot’s books draw on many storytelling traditions, from Ireland to Africa to the Silk Road of Central Asia.

They include modern retellings of traditional tales such as The Arabian Nights, anthologies about pirates and horses and board books that help to nurture children’s love of books years before they actually learn to read.

Although most are essentially stories, many contain some factual content. Examples include We’re Sailing to Galapagos: A Week in the Pacific, which introduces the work of Charles Darwin, and a biography of Leonardo da Vinci told through the voice of his young studio assistant, Giacomo.

Unusually for children’s books, some include glossaries of unfamiliar terms and references to sources. Many are also published in Spanish, while some are bilingual, such as an English/Spanish book about Mexico and an English/Kiswahili counting book set in Tanzania.

Barefoot sometimes spends years searching for the right illustrator for a particular manuscript.

Many titles are illustrated by collage and textile artists, including Clare Beaton, who works with felt, buttons and sequins. The Gift, a book about the cycle of life by poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy, includes delicate papercuts by Rob Ryan.

The quality of Barefoot’s books has been recognised by the number of industry awards the company has won.

It has diversified into selling storytelling and music CDs, educational games such as jigsaws, art and craft materials and puppets.

This winter the new Barefoot Books World Atlas will be launched not only in a printed version but as an iPhone app, which will enable children to do things like walk along the Great Wall of China.

Describing Barefoot as “a value-driven business”, Ms Traversy says that above all they want to help children everywhere to discover the pleasure and value of reading.

The company supports numerous not-for-profit organisations, including the UK’s Booktrust, which provides free starter packs of books for young children and Book Aid International, which supports libraries and schools in sub-Saharan Africa.

Whilst excited by the possibilities of multi-media, Barefoot management believes printed books are precious and irreplaceable.

“Those stories and illustrations that captured your imagination when you were little stay with you for the rest of your life,” said Ms Traversy.