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| LA Librería's current location. | |
LA Librería, a Spanish-language children's bookstore in Los Angeles, Calif., is moving to a new, larger space in June, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Owners and co-founders Chiara Arroyo and Clene Navarrete have found a 4,400-square-foot space in L.A.'s Mid-City neighborhood that is double the size of the bookstore's previous location. It will house a storefront, a conference room for community events and workshops, a warehouse/storage area, and offices.
Navarrete and Arroyo founded LA Librería as an online bookstore in 2012. They were motivated to open a store of their own due to frustration at not only the lack of Spanish-language children's books, but also the quality of the few that were available. They recalled seeing books that had been translated to Spanish from English that were full of errors. After that, it "became a necessity," Navarrete told the Times.
The business began in their homes before moving to a warehouse in West Adams, which Arroyo and Navarrete opened as a storefront in 2015. They've held school book fairs and community festivals, and though the Covid-19 pandemic almost put an end to the bookstore, they were able to keep going thanks to grants and an eager audience.
Looking beyond the new space's opening, LA Librería's owners are considering launching a publishing house, growing the bilingual Los Angeles Libros Festival, forming partnerships with other non-English bookstores in the city, and selling more Spanish-language titles for adults.