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player ready...Winnetka and other North Shore bibliophiles flocked to The Book Stall Saturday, to check out the latest publications on the Elm Street store’s shelves, to meet local authors and to celebrate the strength and diversity of the Chicago area’s independent book stores.
Taking part in Independent Bookstore Day “is a celebration of our business. This is where you’ll encounter passionate booksellers able to help you find titles you won’t find elsewhere,” said store owner Stephanie Hochschild. “And the great thing about being a bookstore in the Chicago community of independent stores is that we’re a network with the same passion, but each store has a different ambiance, a different personality, so we can cater to book lovers of all kinds.”
Independent Bookstore Day is a one-day celebration of independent book stores on the last Saturday in April, according to information from Book Stall manager Mike Wysock.
This was the fourth Independent Bookstore Day, and the second one to feature the Indie Bookstore Crawl, Hochschild said. Planning this year’s event took a couple of months, she said.
At The Book Stall, officially known as The Book Stall on Chestnut Court, visitors could bring their children to take part in all day scavenger hunts, giveaways and snacks, including cocktails from staff members’ favorite books, she said.
The crawl challenge, with the hashtag #MyChicagoBookstore, was sponsored by the Chicagoland Independent Bookstore Alliance, Wysock said. It encouraged book lovers to become store tourists by visiting 10 or more stores on Saturday. It even provided “passports” that could be stamped at each bookstore, and offered sales discounts for those who visited 10 or more stores. Participants had plenty from which to choose, Wysock said.
More than two dozen independent stores from Winnetka and Lake Forest to Naperville took part, he said.
The passports and fun of the day ultimately are a reflection of the love of books, Hochschild said, a love that consistently draws fans to The Book Stall.
“We draw from a wide area, and we have a loyal group of customers,” she said. “A lot of customers come here and say they learned how to read, thanks to The Book Stall.”