National Poetry Month

by Bookseller Sally, a non-poetry person

I have a confession to make — I often feel like I’m not very good at reading poetry.

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy reading poetry from time to time, and I even took a class or two back in undergrad (with local legend Diane Seuss, no less!) But somehow I think I internalized the idea, a long, long time ago, that there are “poetry people” and “non-poetry people,” and I guess I’m just the latter.

Of course this is ridiculous, and the longer I work in a bookstore, the more opportunities I have to explore the beautiful variety of poetry that is available for readers young and old. Poetry takes so many forms – long or short, wide or narrow, rhyming or free-verse, silly or melancholy, concrete or etherial – and different readers will connect with different things.

So, just in case you think you are also a non-poetry person, here are some things I’ve discovered that have helped me realize that maybe – just maybe – I could be a poetry person too.

1. I love kids’ books that rhyme

Kids love rhymes and rhythm, and with good reason! Rhyming is fun! It’s silly! It makes language playful, creative, and engaging. Whether it’s one of Sandra Boynton‘s extensive selection of board books, Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, Josh Funk’s Lady Pancake and Sir French Toast, or so many more, I find that rhyming books are some of my favorites among our collection in Bookbug.

2. I love structured poems

I don’t even care what the structure is, necessarily. Take, for example, Nikki Grimes’ “golden shovel” poems (like this one, above, in One Last Word). Grimes chooses a source poem, highlights a line, and then builds her own poems with that source line cascading down the right side of the page.

The Lost Spells (below) is another beautiful example of structured poetry, inspired by words from the natural world.

Whatever the structure, I love imagining this little window into the poet’s process – how she chooses a form and finds new freedom within constraint.

3. I love novels in verse

This is an especially popular genre among middle grades and young adult books, in which whole novels are written as free-verse poems, with line breaks and stanzas, making the text lyrical and inviting.

Authors such as Elizabeth Acevedo (Clap When You Land, above; The Poet X), Kwame Alexander (e.g., Solo, Swing, The Crossover series), Jason Reynolds (Long Way Down), Sharon Creech (Love that Dog), Jacqueline Woodson (Brown Girl Dreaming, Before the Ever After), and Jasmine Warga (Other Words for Home) (and many more) have used this form with great success.

4. I love poems that play with shape

Poetry is such a versatile medium that invites creativity both in word choice and in the physical presentation on the page. Take, for example, these two poems (above) from How to Love the World, or the two below from Shelter in Place: Stories and Words from the Socially Distant Front Lines of HOME by the youth of Read and Write Kalamazoo.

I love how the shape of a poem affects how I read it – slowly or quickly, smoothly or sharply – and how I get to feel, again, that connection to the poet as craftsperson, guiding me to their truth.

5. I love when poetry makes me pause

Above: “Brand New Clothes” by Langston Hughes (in The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes) and “The Tradition” by Jericho Brown (in The Tradition)

“Exile of Memory” by Joy Harjo (in An American Sunrise)

“Some Questions You Might Ask” by Mary Oliver (in New and Selected Poems, Volume One)

I love the power of poetry to bring life to a stop, even just for a moment.
Sometimes it’s a breathless pause, sometimes contented.
A pause of recognition, of resonance.
A pause of wonder or grief.
A moment with myself and another soul, somewhere in time.

Whether you consider yourself a “poetry person” or still feel like a novice, you can browse our featured National Poetry Month selections here: https://www.bookbugkalamazoo.com/national-poetry-month-2021

A New Look for Picture Books

It started with a question… How can we make it easier for shoppers to find the perfect picture book?

Our beloved picture book section is home to over 1000 books. There are generations-old favorites like The Very Hungry Caterpillar and The Story of Ferdinand, and brand-new classics like I am Every Good Thing and Outside, Inside. With so many possibilities to choose from, browsing this wall can feel at once enticing and intimidating.

This question prompted a conversation… How can we help empower shoppers by organizining this large section into more approchable themes? What kinds of themes or topics are most desired? How can we showcase smaller publishers and newer authors?

As we pondered these questions, we thought about the excited grandparent searching for the perfect gift for a new arrival. We thought about the teacher looking to diversify their classroom library. We thought about the parent whose child has just developed a new obsession.

And so, with a little bit of muscle, quite a bit of organization, and even more love, we settled on a dozen new themes within our picture book inventory. Visitors to this section will now find specific selections of books for ABCs, counting, and making art; books about going to school and books about going to bed; books that are quietly beautiful and books that are super silly; books that celebrate important people in our lives (like grandparents) and books that celebrate cultural traditions; books featuring rhyming; and, of course, books about vehicles, dinosaurs, and fantasy (like unicorns and pirates).

There are still plenty of books that didn’t fit into one of these categories, and certainly many more themes we could have chosen. But we like to think of these new thematic sections as little highlights… small gifts to the thoughtful, busy shopper… consistent reminders of our core values: Kindness, Joy, Knowledge, and Growth.

Staff Picks – March, 2021

People like to say that “March is reading month,” but around here we’re pretty sure that every month is reading month. As you’re considering your next literary adventure, take a look through some of our booksellers’ favorite reads from the last month (or so…)

Amber & Clay

by Laura Amy Schlitz

I am in love with this book. Just when you think Greek Gods and Goddesses could not be presented in a fresh way… Prose, poetry, artifact descriptions fill the page. The writing feels contemporary – it is fast-paced, you get Greek tales, fantasy, philosophy, war, poverty, and pure Magic.
— Cheryl

brood: a novel

by Jackie Polzim

Chickens are maybe the most hapless animals on the planet. A whole book about chickens is very funny to me. Once you have sat down to write a book about chickens and only chickens, I think that there is little that you can do wrong. I am very excited about Brood, by Jackie Polzin, which has the same dry wit and matter-of-factness that you get from an E.B. White essay about his miserable pig farm in Maine or a Richard Brautigan tangent about the dogs barking in his back yard. Reading what I just wrote, it is amazing that none of these are boring, but oh wow, jumpin’ jehosahphats, etc., what quiet beauty there is in the banality of the work it takes to keep chickens from freezing to death in Minnesota. Like all of my favorite books, it takes something simple and makes it seem strange and unfamiliar.
— Phil

Firekeeper’s Daughter

by Angeline Boulley

This is not your typical YA novel. The storyline follows Daunis, a recently graduated hockey enthusiast and Ojibwa girl who passes up the opportunity to attend U of M to stay close to her mother who is grieving the unexpected loss of Daunis’s uncle.

Local Tribal politics seem to have a way of glossing over tragedies that occur within their city and Daunis knows something isn’t right. A new boy in town playing on the local hockey team (the local heroes) is intriguing and gets close to Daunis. They begin an investigation into some serious misdeeds. The suspense kicks up a notch and takes you on a nail-biting journey. All of the characters in this story are rich and detailed. This is so well-crafted and offers a real glimpse into a large pocket of culture set in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. I loved this story.
— Juliette

frank: sonnets

by Diane Seuss

When you hear “sonnets” what comes to mind? Shakespeare likely. Maybe you also turn away thinking sonnets are not your thing? Turn back and read these for a fresh, urgent, beautiful change of mind. I read the whole book in one sitting because I couldn’t stop. By the end it felt like I’d read a book of short stories. I immediately flipped back to certain pages and lines that were so stunning I just had to see them again. One made me laugh out loud. Another so sharply devastating that it took my breath.
— Amy A

The Hare

by Melanie Finn

Rosie Monroe is a sheltered first-year college student in New York City when she meets Bennett – a dashing, enigmatic man at turns charming, cultured, treacherous, and unpredictable. He demands total devotion and obedience, resulting in a whirlwind ride of deception and instability that leads to him effectively abandoning Rosie and their infant daughter in a remote Vermont cabin, with no insulation, income, or car.
Backed into a corner that culminates in a desperate act that haunts Rosie for the rest of her life, we watch her painfully grow up and grow older with the things she saw and the things she did to survive.
A gripping, transcendent tale that will have you by the throat until the very end.
— Steph

Klara and the Sun

by Kazuo Ishiguro

It’s no secret that Kazuo Ishiguro is a brilliant author, and his most recent novel, Klara and the Sun, is certainly no exception. Klara is an “Artificial Friend” who is thrilled to be chosen by a girl named Josie. Something is wrong, though — Josie seems to be experiencing a serious illness. As a narrator, Klara is at once intimately perceptive and sweetly naive about the human world. Fans of Remains of the Day and Never Let Me Go will recognize some of Ishiguro’s favorite themes of memory, longing, impermanence, and the honor in serving others.
— Sally

No One Is Talking About This

by Patricia Lockwood

yes yes YES. My favorite art provides unexpected experiences and I follow blindly where the creator takes me. P Lockwood did that! Right here in this book, with its spotlight freezing the absurdities of our times dead in their tracks. It’s hilarious, disturbing, beautiful and stupidly modern.

Excerpt: “On slow news days, we hung suspended from meathooks, dangling over the abyss. On a fast news day, it was like we had swallowed all of NASCAR and were about to crash into the wall. Either way, it felt like something a dude named Randy was in charge of.” Open to any page and find such things! Keep reading and the heart of this novel grows and grows.
— Beverly

The Old Boat

Jarrett Pumphrey & Jerome Pumphrey

A beautiful tribute to loss, love, change, and beginning anew. Our lives are full of “hellos” and “goodbyes,” beginnings and endings. This book perfectly captures the challange and beauty that comes with an ever-changing world.
— Syd

Persephone Station

by Stina Leicht

The Mandalorian
meets
Leverage
Need I say more?
— Jaclyn

Rissy No Kissies

by Katey Howes, illustrated by Jess Engle

What a wonderful book about Body Autonomy! Rissy knows that kissies make her feel icky, and her wonderful and caring parents listen to her and help her find ways to express care and affection in her own way. So sweet, heartfelt, with Darling illustrations.
— Amy O

Join us for an empowering online event with Katey Howes and Carrie Finison, author of Don’t Hug Doug (He Doesn’t Like It) — where body autonomy and consent are key

Strong as Fire, Firece as Flame

by Supriya Kelkar

Meera, from a small village in India in 1857, is about to turn 13, which means she will need to join the boy from the next village to whom she has been married since age 4. Both families also believe in sati (which the author emphasizes as an infrequent tradition followed by a small percentage of the population, whereby a widow has to immolate herself on her husband’s pyre). Meera’s husband becomes ill and dies just before her birthday. Minutes before Meera is expected to follow the tradition, an aunt helps her escape. The rest of the story follows her escape and subsequent employment as a servant for a captain in the British East India Company. Meera comes of age while trying to understand where her loyalties lie – with the captain’s family who seems to be taking decent care of her while she saves money for a life on her own or with her friends who are resisting the East India Company and all that it has taken from their lives. Great story!
— Shirley

Thirsty Mermaids

by Kat Leyh

Looking for a fun, unique and (of course) queer graphic novel for grown ups?

From the amazing Kat Leyh (author of Snapdragon and contributor to Lumberjanes) comes Thirsty Mermaids, the adventures of Tooth, Pearl, and Eezy — oddballs in the undersea world — on the hunt for some booze and a good time. They drunkenly turn themselves into humans with no known way back. After a night passed out in an alley, they find a human friend to help them and while Eezy tries to find them a way back to their mer-selves, Tooth and Pearl have to get jobs so they can earn this money stuff people are so into.

Gorgeously weird humor. Radical acceptance of self and others. Fun and quick. I loved it so so much. It made my whole heart happy.
— Kim

We Begin at the End

by Chris Whitaker

An absorbing, thrilling mystery set in a tiny tourist town on the California coast. One of the locals is being released from prison after serving thirty years for killing a young girl, and the town’s wounds are still raw. With plot twists and suspense that will keep you on edge, a 13-year-old, self-proclaimed “outlaw” named Duchess drives this engrossing novel. I could not put it down!
— Mary

The Echo Wife

by Sarah Gailey

Evelyn Caldwell is a woman of science. She has recently developed a process for cloning which imprints the memories and personality of a person on their clone, for which her name will never be forgotten. Which makes it an even more painful betrayal when her husband steals her research, clones her, and leaves her. For her clone. Quick, sharp, and atmospheric, this book is a killer domestic thriller.
— Katie

Bookselling in the Time of Corona

By Sally Read

I went back to the bookstore last week, after three weeks of working exclusively from home. It’s strange, to say the least. Strange to be back among the stacks, the couches, the cafe tables. Strange to glance into the playhouse or climb the squeaky ladder to search through backstock.

ladder

 

The store is in this suspended state – like all of us, I guess. It hangs between beauty and necessity. What makes a bookstore beautiful, what makes it useful to the public, is not always the same thing that makes it useful to the crisis-bookseller. A beautiful bookstore draws you in. It invites browsing – with thoughtfully-written rec cards and impeccably-themed display tables. It inspires new ideas. The beauty of a bookstore is in the emotional connection between people and books, people and coffee, people and people. 

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The necessities of bookselling-in-the-time-of-coronoa are different. Those beautiful displays? They’ve been stripped, to make space for packing supplies, piles for pickup, bags for local delivery, books sticky-noted with questions for tomorrow’s shift. Our own form of triage. As I move through the partially-lit store, looking for a book someone has ordered online, I imagine this must be something like how it feels to work in one of those big warehouse stores. Take the order form, locate the product, label the product for customer retrieval, repeat. Is this still bookselling?

shipping

This is week eight of crisis operations, and it’s mind-boggling to think back on how things have changed, again and again, during that time. My last “regular” shift was Saturday, March 14. This was soon after all of the state universities announced an immediate move to online instruction, and it was clear that things were changing quickly. The next day, the bookstore closed its doors to the public, for the foreseeable future. Like many of you, I read Joanna’s message that Sunday and sobbed. I knew it was the right thing to do, but it felt so wrong to close a place that has been a home, a sanctuary to so many. 

outside

That next week was a scramble. We were one of only a few businesses locally that voluntarily closed down, and people still wanted – needed – books. With the library closed and kids home from school, the bookstore suddenly felt like a truly essential business. We fielded an influx of online and phone orders with gratitude and as much organization as we could muster. This meant an immediate, radical shift in operations. In the “before times,” we might get 10 or 12 online orders in a week. Since March 15, we’ve processed almost 3500. 

Then, on March 23, the Governor issued a state-wide stay-at-home directive. This meant an end to curbside pickup and another (immediate, radical) shift in operations. Shipping everything – even local orders – meant investing in packing supplies, apologizing to customers who had expected to pick up their books, and developing an intimate relationship with the USPS tracking system. As we have come to see in recent weeks, the (essential, underfunded) USPS has been overwhelmed by the bulk of shipments, nationwide, and delivery times climbed from a week to a month or more, with nothing we at the bookstore could do to help.

April 6 was my last day in the store before returning last week. That was the day a local public safety officer informed the bookstore that we were an “unessential business” and could not continue even the minimal operations we were then conducting. Our already skeletal team was stripped further, and only owners and managers could be onsite. This time the immediate, radical shift meant finding ways to work remotely – continuing to ship books to readers without ever being able to touch those books ourselves. We learned that other independent bookstores were having success shipping directly from their warehouses, which made many orders more efficient, for us and for customers.

you rock

And now we’re back – well, “back” – in the store, still on a very limited, socially-distant basis. Most days we have one bookseller working to receive incoming orders from FedEx and scanning them into the system, and another person organizing items for curbside pickup or shipment. Other team members are still working remotely to process online orders, respond to emails, and curate personalized book recommendations or gift baskets. Oh, and there’s the amazing work happening to prepare large orders for organizations that are getting books to children, not to mention the ongoing work of updating our website with new products and events to help keep community members engaged with their favorite bookstore, even while apart. 

kids

It’s a lot, and I’m grateful for the part I get to play in it, even through the frequent changes, the (inevitable, inescapable) strangeness. This is still “bookselling,” I think. We’re helping people get great books – and puzzles, socks, games, gifts – even if the experience is different for the shopper and seller alike. As someone who takes real joy in helping a reader find the perfect book, it’s heartbreaking not to be able to be with people, sharing space and ideas. It’s heartbreaking to feel like we’ve let people down, because of a botched order or a missing delivery. It’s heartbreaking to know that we are far from alone in our struggle, and that there are many people facing much worse.

Through everything, the bookstore adapts. Like everyone – parents, teachers, medical professionals, restaurant workers, farmers, small businesses of all kinds – we adapt because we have to. And we’ll keep adapting for as long as we have to. Until it is safe and responsible to reopen our doors, to attempt a return to some kind of normal. We’ll be here, selling books.

sally

Top Ten Blunders ’08-’18

 

1. Not Knowing who Andrew Clements Was. (2008)

clements

This memory is clear. Week One. A gentleman comes in to browse our fledgling shelves. He inquires pointedly where the Andrew Clements books are. I have not heard of Andrew Clements. He can tell. I am revealed as fraud for thinking myself able to tend a meaningful bookstore. “Clements is important to kids in transition from elementary to middle,” he offers insistently. “Thank you for letting me know about his work. We will likely stock it soon,”  I say. This felt to be a big blunder that first week, failing to meet expectation of knowledge and not having the books “everyone” knows we should have. But the true misstep here was my assuming the exchange a loss. To the contrary, it was a part of the key to our promise of knowledge itself. Shockingly, I still don’t know all the authors and books requested by customers, but my response is still (and always will be) the same: “Thank you. Now I know more.”

2. Thinking tweens would like to talk politics in Hunger Games (2009)

hunger games

We hosted a pizza party/ book discussion in ’09 . The turnout was great because kids were anxious to talk about this book and vote Peeta v. Gale, but why did I keep asking about the “psychology of revolution” and the ways “rhetoric of war and the propaganda of leadership” were clear in the text? Way to make a great story about rad teens caught in a dramatic challenge and emerging love triangle boring, book lady.

Thanks for setting me straight, kids. You did.

3. Making Written Mistakes. (all the time)

mistake

We are book people who claim to love words and their rules of operation, so why do we misspell them on a receipt or post a newsletter/social media missive with a typo? Because we are humans prone to making the mistakes that hurt us the most.

4. Carting Books to Car, Loading the Large Hand Truck. Leaving Books on Sidewalk. Driving home. (2011)

boxes

When asked what part of the business I’m not good at, I don’t miss a beat: moving and tending all the boxes of books. You’ll see this in action when I load in to any community event or move boxes in store. This is a task I often took on as a strong (not strong) one-woman show for years.

In spring of 2011, I took several heavy boxes of books to an author event downtown. The books didn’t all sell, so I loaded them back on my trusted hand-truck and walked to the car. There I astutely placed the boxes on sidewalk, put the precious, heavy hand-truck into the trunk and drove dreamily away, leaving the books to fend for themselves on the Kalamazoo Mall. (They were gone from the walk in the morning, never to be seen again.)

5. Underestimating the number of people who would come out for Patricia Polacco. (2017)

patty P

We’ve hosted Patricia several times in the last 10 years, each time to a large, vibrant, crowd, but nothing quite prepared us (or her) for the endless line of (thousands) that came out to see her this last summer. We didn’t have enough books or space in her remarkable home, but we did have just enough wherewithal to make sure everyone left with compassion and hope.

6. Setting Out Too Many Chairs (2008 – ?)

empty chairs

It’s not as devastating as not being able to serve hungry fans well, but it is demoralizing nonetheless and one of the necessary blunders of hosting free and open events: sometimes far fewer people come than you hope, and the difference between the dream and the reality is there for a grateful small few of us to see.

7. Thinking We Can Be Everything to Everyone.

good night

This one speaks for itself, but is a particular conundrum for brick&mortar retail. In many ways, we are committed to serving every person and every need that comes through the door. It took years to understand that some people entering did not have interest in who we are or what we are offering and could say something hurtful (that should instead be received as matter of fact): “This place doesn’t have anything I like.”

8. Thinking that there are more pressing things to do than read.

nina w book

Starting the business was more work than ever imagined. Operating and growing it…more so still, everyday.

It often seems responsible to not indulge in what brought us to the business to begin with: reading for pleasure.

You see the blunder here though, no?

9. Introducing the wrong author

joanna back

I haven’t kept tally on number of authors introduced over the years, but I will always remember the one I did the unforgivable to: read bio aloud  (from loved, trusted source), only to discover it was that of another writer who had very same name. I stopped mid-way, aware of the blunder, apologized, and promised to keep his book face-out on the shelf (and my head in the sand) for life.

10. Being married in front of people.

being mom&pop

We own a business together and don’t always agree on the details. Here’s one: I like to start large events promptly. He prefers to wait for likely late arrivals. At the start of one such event, we disagreed publicly on the matter. A loving attendee offered “can you tell they are married?”

Yes, we’ve learned to set clear “personal and professional lines, with respect and communication as pillars to both,” but do staff and customers catch glimpses of a private, bickering couple sometimes?

Yes. No. Yes.

 

Top Ten Memories ’08 – ’18

1.  The Promise of the Promise

Promise

When asked what it is that brought us to the business of books and to this place, I  answer two things: 1. a crazy love; and 2. a groundbreaking promise.

Dismantling the financial barrier of higher ed for all students is the thing we pointed to when asked for proof of place that: cared about books, rallied around community, could survive a plummeting economy, and would work to nurture local investment. The Promise, both its immeasurable spirit and finite goals are forever linked to our store’s mission and practice. Its announcement in 2005 and its immediate and ongoing impact are among our most pivotal memories.

2. Hearing the young Voices of Kalamazoo

Reader

If you’ve heard our welcome of RAWK Reads or Justice for our Neighbors events, you’ve heard this before: we host a lot of powerful voices in our space. World renowned authors, activists, poets, and artists–who rock our shelves and our world. Still, nothing holds candle to hearing the voices and written words of children of our community.

3. Being drawn to and by kids

happy birthday bookbug

An eight-year old drew our first logo. Since then the words, drawings and messages from kids stand out as most memorable keepsakes and the feedback we take most dramatically to heart.

4. Being mistaken as Michael Pollan during a KCF annual meeting, with Pollan as keynote. (2014)

derek as michael

It was a likely mistake: Derek was standing behind the books without much hair and a welcoming smile. He took it in stride, saying he’d be happy to sign as many books as they’d like.

5. Our midnight release for the next generation. (2016)

potter party kids

Alohomora. It was so great. Thanks for the magic, Kalamazoo.

6. Not Needing to Introduce Amy Goodman because she said ALL THE WORDS herself. (2017)

amy with crowd

She took the mic right away and said it all. Here we were in an independent space, talking, listening, and acting.  This is Democracy in action. This is what a free and open press looks like. Independent bookstores and independent stakeholders, our time is Now.

7. Roxane Gay describing speed at which she writes and the media (including napkins) on which she places potent messages. (2014)

Roxane Gay

Process and craft as matter of frantic necessity, relentless practice, and powerful truth. Gay’s was among most candid, specific, and graceful offering of this we recall.

(Lindy West rolling over to her laptop on her couch comes in a close, wonderful second.)

8. Getting help with clean-up from friends

helping kids

It happens after every event: someone (or two) offers to help put the store back together again, because Kalamazoo is better than all the king’s horses and all the king’s men.

9. Embarrassing Self in most introductions of guests

speaking

I can’t help it. Hosting usually means welcoming a hero. This is my chance to say it out loud.

10. Exhausting Family

exhausting family

Our work (to build a meaningful bookstore) is our life–in the healthiest and hardest of ways. Not one of us isn’t pooped out and grateful at end of the day/week/year(s).

We are infinitely better for having each other and you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Top Ten Customer Moments ’08-’18

We have met many friends, encountered several surprises, and welcomed countless queries between 2008 and 2018. The moments that follow are both unique, single memories and reoccurring wonders, each a stand-out over the last decade as powerful moments we won’t forget.

1. Being told Thank You by a person accustomed to not finding self in books; having instinct to respond “i am sorry.” and instead offering, “you are welcome.” you are.  

finding shelf

Much has changed since 2008, when I asked an experienced librarian for children’s books in which non heteronormative relationships were incidental rather than driving force of story, whether there were fresh, fantastic graphic novels featuring characters of color, and where all the new bilingual picture books could be found. I came up scarce on these requests in ’08, and can point to many more hitting these marks well in ’18. Still, we have a long way to go as a store, as an industry, and as a community, to demonstrate authentic welcome, service, and celebration of the fullest, richest human story possible. This intention was a founding principle of our store and remains a guiding force in all we do.

2. Being Told a Reader Was (re) Born.

being told a reader was born

Every child is born a reader. There is no newborn not intrigued by the rhythms, movements, and scenes of story and no human not driven by its hold. There are, though, many children led to believe reading is not for them: letters on a page are confusing or uncompelling, the act of reaching story via text strange or unwanted, especially in the way–or at the rate–expected. We have always believed that removing such expectations and focusing on what makes receiving story intriguing and joyful is the only matter. This is why we show kids of all ages and reading abilities books overflowing with pictures, with hilarious, interactive, relatable text, books others say are beneath or above them, and then, sometimes we hear the story return that we love most of all: a reader is (re) born.

2 1/2. A toddler giving art direction to an author/illustrator, as needed.  

art direction

All great illustrators to visit our store have engaged kids in the act of creating character, action, and scene, but there was something about Bob Shea, his jelly bean start to every picture and his full embrace of a resolute toddler that will remain in our hearts forever.

3. Being cautioned by a conference organizer that people may not want books.

first year

In defense of this caution, the most experienced among us have no crystal ball on demand for anything, ever. It’s a truth indistinguishable from others’ in the business of offering goods, but formulas of prediction do reveal themselves in time and in a few marked circumstances. Nerd Camp Michigan is one such instance, and the formula revealed itself immediately in 2014:

joy-driven book passion + genuine friendship + free gathering place + innovative authors + radically compassionate educators = ALL THE BOOKS WILL BE WANTED.

This photo (taken that first year) was our modest, plentiful table upon load-in. Within hours, each book was gone from this table. Every year since, we bring higher broader stacks, and they always fly away on the wings of this formula.

4. Hearing a mother giggle at her toddler in loving insistence that the Girl Power book was not for him.  

Girl Power

This is a specific memory, yes, but also a moment reflecting something ubiquitous in our 10 years years: the expressed (or acted upon) assumption that books prominently featuring confidently gendered girls are not (or in some cases, should not be) interesting to boys.  It is a quiet, well-intended, devastating form of sexism that we hope to see change dramatically in our next ten years.

5. Offering Presence to a Grieving Loved One.

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There are many ways to be present to a dear friend or known acquaintance processing unbearable loss. In the bookstore this experience has taken many sacred shapes: placing loved words into trembling hands, searching unknown stories for small comforts, allowing a kindred reader the distance and dignity of the shelves to self, remembering a detail of the loved-one in store, hugging, crying, being open, being here–it has been a great honor and an amazing grace.

6. Watching an unknown customer weep upon entering a new space.

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I didn’t know her. She didn’t know me. We both cried.

7. Being the background to moments

mom and daughter

There are many customers who have chosen our store as place to document their own stories: the marking of engagement or marriage, new and grown families posing for photo, a mother&daughter in musical accompaniment. Our shelves are a grateful background to these live, beautiful stories.

8. Being Gifted Unexpected Inspired Art

Chair Made for Us

It is one thing to be caretaker, advocate, and carrier of art, it is another to be recognized and celebrated in it itself. This chair, gifted in surprise to our story time leader is one of the many offerings the store has been gifted in celebration of its very being. Each of these gifts and times of their offering are among our most memorable.

9. Being spotted away from home

waldo

One of my fondest early memories is being recognized by a child in the grocery and hearing: “Look Mom, it’s the book lady. What’s she doing here?” Since then, being spotted–and building book community–beyond our walls has grown more intentional and joyful. Waldo’s summer wanderings in Kalamazoo are one way we thank our town for spotting (and appreciating) us away from our home.

10. Being told: “I am surprised you are still open.”

persisting

This hasn’t tapered much in 10 years and takes many different forms:

“How can you compete?”

“I thought you were all dead.”

“Do people still read books?”

“You’re still here in this corner?”

And, nevertheless…

 

 

On Books and Being. An Independent Bookstore.

There is a great photo of Ann Patchett perched on a front table in her luminous independent bookstore, Parnassus, taken last year. You may have seen it. It was in a small national newspaper and then perhaps, on every booklover’s social media feed for days. I still see it occasionally on mine. I quietly bow to Ann each time.

I then (sometimes) look lovingly into Bookbug’s own (less luminous, more harried, equally earnest) space and my own (less luminous, more harried, equally earnest) eyes, and smile at something bigger–and more luminous–than either of these pictures, or places, or people.

I smile at the fact that the independent bookstore is safe.

That the “brutal beatings” we weathered (so termed by business reporters and real-life exhausted operators) were not actually “brutal.” They were inconvenient (perceived conveniences to some): the rise of the Big Box, the growth of online shopping, the steady intrigue of digital intake. All of it interesting, some of it troublesome and none of it touching the actual value in the business of tending books, or knowledge or art. None of it poking through the soul of any true endeavor to do these things, and therefore none of it actually “brutal” at all.

Even the comeback story of the independent bookstore may have been embellished. I enjoyed it (and perhaps our store benefited from it) as much as anyone.  It was rumbling in the belly of the industry even before Patchett and her seemingly brilliant workhorse of a partner, Karen Hayes, opened their store in Nashville in 2011. But those among us who had laid bookish wood floors, painted exposed ceilings, group- epiphanized chalkboard section signs, and survived the lowest-functioning retail economy in decades knew darn well we had something stronger than comeback energy or foolish hope to bank on.

We had our human Selves.

We had the imagination and gall to want to work in a place, with an offering, and toward a goal we care deeply and passionately about, to allow customers and colleagues to support a creative and welcoming home of spirited alertness. We didn’t know if these were the characteristics of the leaders and consumers of a profitable company, but we did know that they were the characteristics of a shared good life. We were selfish in our desire for one.

As years in business and life go on, we are also keenly aware of life breaking, that life is, by definition, broken.

In preparing for a recent staff meeting, I thought about the irreparable loss our store had suffered in the weeks prior: a family of passionate readers whose teenage son died unexpectedly; a father to three vibrant, hilarious kids taken by a car accident; a partner, writer and friend gone on one unjust winter’s night; a bitter, angry,  confused and increasingly belligerent country.

These were stories that broke us. As a bookstore we were (and are) not here to alter or fix them. I took (and take) incredible comfort though in the fact that we are here to be alive and alert to them, to be present in the very same way any worthwhile book, story, or work of human art is: as a physical, intellectual, and emotional recognition of the fact that life is hard and also astoundingly beautiful , that soulful sanctuary is needed and that thought and art and love may be all that any of us should ever dream to have.

A beautiful bookstore is a place to find it.

This is exactly why I bow to Ann Patchett every time I see her in her photo or and hear her cheering on indies, even if we are not really the underdogs. It’s why I agreed to take my own picture.

And so here we are, Ann, in our pictures, holding our dogs, holding our cause, holding our customers in a promise to be present for them, and in the hope (nay certainty) that they will choose to be present back.

Here’s to crowds of them wanting to do so on Saturday, April 29th when you and I and hundreds of earnest bookstore owners have a party in support of our loves.

#independentbookstoreday2017