What's YOUR fav Indie Bookstore? And Happy Poetry Friday!

.
Howdy, Campers!

We're jumping up and down and popping balloons, celebrating our Fourth Blogiversary...and you're invited to join in the fun by entering to win one of four gift certificates to a fab independent bookstore.  Details?  Read all about it here!
 .

And it's Friday, so happy Poetry-Friday-in-the-midst-of-Poetry-Month! Thank you, Laura Purdie Salas, for hosting PF today!

And now...on with the show:

In keeping with our blogiversary celebration, we're talking about indie bookstores.  Here's my riff:

I was a long-time active member of the Southern California Children's Booksellers Association (SCCBA), a feisty organization of indies who generously shared knowledge on how to run a bookstore among themselves and with those thinking about starting a children's bookstore. These newbies could have seen as their competitors, but instead they were embraced as colleagues and became friends. 

SCCBA was a leader among children's independent bookseller associations and in 1984 SCCBA was the midwife in the birthing of the national organization, American Booksellers for Children (ABC) (which has since merged with the American Booksellers Association.)

SCCBA itself folded into the Southern California Independent Booksellers Association just a few years ago. All this merging was hard for many of us, and sad, so sad...but SCIBA has proven itself to be a lively, engaged and strong non-profit trade association.

So which are my fav indies?  Must I choose just one?  A longtime favorite, just up the freeway from me, is Children's Bookworld, founded in 1986 by Sharon Hearne, and still going strong.

I am still mourning Dutton's Brentwood Bookstore, which closed in 2008.

BUT there's great news: indies are making a comeback and I'm lucky to have not one but two fabulous indies just a few miles from my home, both opened within the last few years:

 The marvelous Mysterious Galaxy 

and the absolutely wonderful {pages}!

Here's my rough draft of a book poem in honor of indies today:

HOOKED ON A BOOK (The Evolution of Bruno Littlemore By Benjamin Hale)

rough draft poem by April Halprin Wayland

I’m reading the autobiography
of a classically educated, erudite
chimpanzee.

I stay up too late reading it.
Rather than listen to NPR’s Morning Edition,
I prop the book against the fish bowl as I brush my teeth.

His story
sticks to the souls of my hiking shoes
as I clamber up a steep slope in Arizona.

While buying half a head of Napa cabbage at the farmers market,
I wonder what will happen to his owner, Lydia
and why he’s writing the book from a jail cell.

Through a dinner of grape tomatoes, Napa cabbage,
juicy chicken and roasted potatoes, baby turnips and carrots,
it haunts me

like cookie dough ice cream
haunts me
from the freezer.

poem © 2013 April Halprin Wayland. All rights reserved

Hats off to Indies that offer us so much! Please DO NOT wander around an indie and then go home to order online.  Here's why (under two minutes and worth watching...):

And remember to enter our indie bookstore gift certificate giveaway!

I'm trying to remember to put my name at the end of these posts...this is important because those who subscribe don't see the byline which automatically posts our names for us. So...

tah-tah from April Halprin Wayland!