Celebrate Local Bookshops with the Indie Passport Adventure
Visit up to twenty independent bookstores in Rhode Island for a chance to win coupons, bibliophile bragging rights and $500 worth of books.
A display at Charter Books in Newport during last year’s Independent Bookstore Day. Photo by Amale Chamseddine.
Twenty bookstores. Nine days. Are you in?
That’s the challenge being posed in the Rhode Island Independent Bookstore Passport Adventure to celebrate the state’s indie bookshop scene.
Should you choose to accept, fellow book lovers, your assignment is this: Starting Saturday, April 18, pick up a passport at either Books on the Square in Providence, Charter Books in Newport or Wakefield Books in Wakefield. Then visit all twenty participating shops — crisscrossing the state from Westerly and Tiverton to Pawtucket and Providence — and get your passport stamped at each one. No purchase is necessary, but book-ogling, mingling with other bibliophiles and getting lost in each store’s charm absolutely is.
Plus, you’ll get to take part in each store’s Independent Bookstore Day celebration, a national event that this year falls on Saturday, April 25. Think special sales, story times, readings, food and merriment, and all sorts of collabs, pop-ups and author shenanigans.
Once you have all your stamps, return to one of the three anchor stores (Books on the Square, Charter Books or Wakefield) by Sunday, April 26, with your completed passport and a staffer will mark down your participation. Voila! Everyone who gets all twenty stamps will receive a sheet of 20 percent off coupons valid at each participating shop. One lucky grand-prize winner will a $25 gift certificate for each store. That’s $500 worth of books!
Since Rhode Island is so small, organizers are hopeful that the challenge can be completed in nine days’ time.
“We really do have such a great advantage of being compact,” says Amy Van Keuren, store manager of Charter Books. “It really is possible to do all of the stores in Providence in one day, and then some of the East Bay stores without it being extremely onerous. In a lot of other states, there’s no ability for that to happen — they’re just too spread out.”
The crowd during 2024’s Independent Bookstore Day at Charter Books in Newport. Photo by Amy Van Keuren.
Independent booksellers have been seeing brighter days as of late. After the advent of Amazon in 1994 cut a swath through the industry, book shops started rebounding during COVID, with consumers craving local connections. Last year, 422 new bookstores opened, according to the American Booksellers Association, and more than 4 million books were published, a 33 percent increase over 2024.
People are heading to their local bookstores for curated recommendations and reading lists, and for book events and authors’ talks. Many savvy booksellers are also forming local collaborations with eateries and shops and holding pop-up events, in effect cross-pollinating audiences and making more people aware of their offerings.
“We’re living in a great time to be in an independent bookstore, although there’s always challenges with any kind of small business,” Van Keuren says. “But having a lack of people who love reading is not one of those.”
People are even going on vacations and retreats based around books and seeking out local stores when they travel to new places.
“There is something really fun about the fact that bookstores have become a bit of a travel incentive,” Van Keuren says. “So many people want to visit indie bookstores in different places. If they come to a new town, they want to make sure that they hit the local bookstore — not necessarily just to find something to read, but to see what people are recommending.”
After a hiatus, the program returned this year after last being held in 2019, thanks to teamwork between Jennifer Kandarian, Books on the Square’s store manager, Van Keuren, and the staff at Wakefield Books. They expanded the event to nine days instead of two; previously, it was only held during the weekend of Independent Bookstore Day.
Suffice to say that weekend was, shall we say, a little rushed.
“People would kind of run in and say, ‘Can you stamp this?’ and then run out again,” Van Keuren says. “The idea is we want people to come and see our stores, often for the first time. They don’t have to buy anything, but we’d love it if they’d look around and see what we’re about. And maybe want to come back.”
If you’re so inclined, follow along as I race to complete the adventure on Rhode Island Monthly’s Instagram channel @rimonthly. And for more information and a list of participating bookstores, visit booksq.com.
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