Most people who are on this site probably love bookstores. Why? What is it about bookstores that makes people describe them as magical? In a way bookstores are indescribable to the book lover, but magic is the word that seems to be used most often.
Author and bookstore owner, Matthew Browning, asks bookstore owners this very question in each episode of his Bookstore Explorer podcast. He gets a different answer each time. In a world where we can have a cheap book delivered to our doorstep within hours we still find hoards of people championing the bookstore. Independent bookstores survived the information age, the digital revolution, the e-reader, the audio book, Amazon, and a worldwide pandemic that closed the doors to numerous beloved bookstores. Now I like an e-reader and an audio book as much as the next person, but that doesn’t replace walking into a bookstore or library.
The persistence of the bookstore to survive is not new to current generations. Saving books is at the heart of many stories from both World Wars. Why? Why did people risk their lives to preserve and distribute books? They are a tool, a portal, an escape, an answer—they can represent it all. Stephen King said it best (shocking, I know) with “books are a uniquely portable magic.” I feel this in my bones yet can’t articulate the science of it.
As I write this first post for Sammy’s Bookshelf I think of the other fantastic bookstores in central Arkansas. Bookstores that opened their doors to me with advice and encouragement. How many industries support a “competitor?” Books are different. It’s an understanding. An invisible string connecting book lovers who all want more books, more readers, more people experiencing a uniquely portable magic.
Sammy’s Bookshelf wants this to be felt in the core by children. Not just getting books into the hands of kids who need them—but getting them to crave a book. Yes—getting books into kids’ hands is important and necessary. We are committed to this mission. But the primary goal is getting kids hooked on books. Getting kids to ask to go to the bookstore. Getting kids to ask for books for their birthday. When all else is unequal, books play a role in leveling the playing field.
I’ll end this post with a quote from Kristin Harmel’s The Books of Lost Names (a World War II historical fiction about heroic forgers and current day efforts to return books stolen by the Nazis to their owners): “There’s something almost miraculous about seeing a child’s eyes light up when you hand him a book that intrigues him. I’ve always thought that it’s those children—the ones who realize that books are magic—who will have the brightest lives.”
