More than 1,600 independent bookstores across the United States celebrated Independent Bookstore Day on Saturday, April 26, and children’s books were a hot item along with reads for their parents, who swarmed indies in unprecedented numbers.

“Everyone’s coming out, talking books, wanting to shop local,” said Emily Kallas, the outreach coordinator for Next Chapter Booksellers in St. Paul, Minn., early Saturday afternoon. “It’s absolute magic.”

Next Chapter’s manager, David Enyeart, described IBD as “incredible,” adding that Saturday’s sales were up “a whopping 25% over IBD 2024, and sales for the five-day period from Wednesday to Sunday were up by just under a third.” Like almost every bookstore contacted by PW after IBD wound down by Sunday evening, Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins was a top seller at Next Chapter, as well as Everything Is Tuberculosis, an adult nonfiction work by John Green, best known for his YA novels.

On the other side of the Mississippi River, in Minneapolis, Beth Wilson, a co-owner at Wild Rumpus, reported that the store netted $5,000 over last year’s IBD take, with 1,000 books sold on April 26 alone. The two bestsellers were books by beloved local authors: Ferris by Kate DiCamillo and Pizza & Taco by Stephen Shaskan. “Beginner books and board books also were the biggest sellers,” Wilson said, “which tells us we’ve got a whole generation of new readers coming in hot.”

While there were 35 other Twin Cities bookstores officially participating in the bookstore crawl, Moon Palace Books in Minneapolis was a hub of activity for readers of all ages that radiated outward and drew crowds to the area. While customers browsed inside the store, Monica Murray Husted, a cartoonist who has had two graphic novels published, created chalk art on the sidewalk in front. In the parking lot beside the store, Mind’s Eye Comics maintained a booth next to the Babycake’s Bookstack mobile bookstore, which had long lines snaking around the bus. And Paperback Exchange, which had to close its doors in February after being flooded, operated a pop-up all weekend in a Quonset hut behind the bookstore. “There’s so much good bookselling going on here,” Moon Palace owner Jamie Schwesnedl said. Today, we are in the bookstore district.”

Indie Bookstores Build Communities

“We had an amazing day,” reported Kate Lockard Snyder, the owner of the Plaid Elephant Books in Danville, Ky., which partnered with four other central Kentucky indies to organize their first bookstore crawl. “That brought in some lovely new foot traffic and contributed to this being our best sales day ever. We’ve been open four years and hadn’t managed to beat the opening day numbers until yesterday.” Customers, she said, purchased a wide range of books, sidelines, and special IBD merch, including the Frog & Toad coloring book by Arnold Lobel that the American Booksellers Association distributed as an IBD exclusive.

“It was the biggest day in our store’s [46-year] history,” said Women and Children co-owner Lynn Mooney, disclosing that $3,000 in sales were rung up within an hour of opening. “It was 20% higher than our previous highest sales day, which was last year’s IBD,” she said, attributing it to a combination of national IBD publicity and the popularity of the 55-store Chicago bookstore crawl, as well as the appeal of the Chicago-exclusive merch, including two posters and a postcard by comic artist and author Lucy Knisley.

West of the Windy City, Anderson’s Bookshops is celebrating its 150th anniversary; its Naperville, Ill. location’s IBD sales were a whopping 261% over last year, despite B&N opening a store three days earlier that is only 800 feet away. Co-owner Becky Anderson reported that the top sellers were adult reads, but they included The Genius of Judy: How Judy Blume Rewrote Childhood for All of Us by Rachelle Bergstein.

In Wayne, Pa., on Philadelphia’s Main Line, Main Point Books’s special IBD programming featured a number of local children’s authors, including Kaitlin Curtice, Donna Gephart, Jamar Nicholas, and Candace Spizzirri. Sales were up 35% over last year, reported buyer Anmiryam Budner, despite a B&N opening in late January in nearby Bryn Mawr. “The thing that was really gratifying was the broad age range of our customers and the spectrum of the titles they bought,” Budner said—“commercial and literary fiction, frontlist and backlist, and tons of genre fiction. Science fiction and fantasy for both adults and children did especially well.”

Twists on IBD Activities

In Columbus, Ohio, not only did 15 indies collaborate on a bookstore crawl, but a group of local children’s authors that included Margaret Peterson Haddix, Michelle Houts, Elisa Stone Leahy, Leigh Lewis, Mar Romasco Moore, Stacy Nockowitz, Natalie Richards, David Rickert, Debbie Rigaud, Erik Jon Slangerup, and Carmella Van Vleet that was led by middle grade author Julia DeVillers went big: they rented a “party van” to visit the stores.

“My friend had just launched a party van business and I thought, why not turn IBD into a party on wheels?” DeVillers said. “So we gathered up our Ohio middle grade author group, turned on the van’s strobe lights and music videos, and hit the road for the first-ever Author Bookstore Crawl. We visited seven Columbus bookstores as a group then fanned out to hit more on our own. We rolled up with balloons and swag for both stores and readers. We posed for photos, signed books, and occasionally had to peel authors away from chatting with customers just to stay on schedule.”

In the Atlanta metro area, seven indies owned by Black women also went big: not only did they celebrate IBD at their stores, but they collaborated on an inaugural Black Girl Book Fair, a family-friendly event that took place outside Brave + Kind Books in Decatur. Julia Davis, owner of the Book Worm in Powder Springs, said that the collaboration with the other stores on the event made the day her “most successful and most fulfilling IBD yet,” adding that many customers visited her store before driving 40 minutes to the fair.

In San Francisco, Green Apple Books on the Park featured Bebe Black Carminito, Daniel Handler (aka Lemony Snicket), and Colin Winnett bartending at an author happy hour; proceeds are going to the queer book initiative, Books Not Bans. And at Green Apple Books’ Clement Street location, Charlie Jane Anders led a group making doodle art. Elsewhere in the City by the Bay, Bookshop West Portal took the opportunity to “engage in some grassroots activism throughout the day” by providing postcards on which customers were encouraged to pen short messages to their legislators, said buyer and special project manager Susan Tunis. “We are very fortunate not to have issues with book banning in San Francisco, but library funding, First Amendment rights, and Amazon’s monopoly affect us all.” West Portal also hosted its first Drag Story Hour with drag performer Panda Dulce, aka middle grade author Kyle Casey Chu (The Queen Bees of Tybee County). “That was our first Drag Story Hour, but it won’t be our last,” Tunis said.