Independent Bookstore Day set

Independent Bookstore Day lands on Saturday, April 25, and Shenandoah Valley booksellers are turning it into a two-week, nine-store regional crawl. (bookweb.org) (valleybookshops.com) The Shenandoah Valley Indie Bookshop Crawl runs from April 10 to April 25, 2026, with stops stretching from Winchester to Buena Vista. Organizers say readers use a passport, collect stamps or stickers at each shop, and enter prize drawings tied to how many stores they visit. (visitstaunton.com) (valleybookshops.com) The participating stores are Bonfire Bookstore & Yarnery in Woodstock, Winchester Book Gallery in Winchester, Bluebird & Co. in Crozet, The Book Dragon, Staunton Books & Tea, and Words Matter in Staunton, (Parentheses) in Harrisonburg, Stone Soup Books in Waynesboro, and Leaf & Lore in Buena Vista. The crawl website lists one $50 store-specific drawing and a grand prize of $225 in gift cards for people who visit at least seven shops. (valleybookshops.com) (globalbookcrawl.org) Independent Bookstore Day itself is a national event run by the American Booksellers Association, which calls April 25, 2026 the 13th annual celebration and says more than 2,000 bookstores take part across all 50 states. The Valley crawl plugs a local road-trip format into that one-day national promotion. (bookweb.org) That format shifts the focus from a single shop’s sales floor to a wider bookstore map across small cities and towns. Event listings describe the crawl as a way to connect book buying with travel through historic downtowns, cafés, and main streets across the region. (visitstaunton.com) (valleybookshops.com) Store pages describe the 2026 event as the first Shenandoah Valley Indie Bookshop Crawl, and regional coverage says it was organized by Staunton bookseller Anika Horn. The launch comes as independent bookstores keep using passports, exclusives, and in-person events to turn a national retail holiday into local foot traffic. (stonesoupbooks.net) (newsleader.com) (bookweb.org) For readers, the calendar is simple: the national bookstore holiday is April 25, but the Valley passport has already been running since April 10. The last stop is still the same one-day marker that independent bookstores across the country are using this year. (bookweb.org) (visitstaunton.com)