Barbara and Valeria Cerda, sisters who own La Revo Books, Milwaukee, Wis., have been named the 2024 Midwest Booksellers of the Year and will be celebrated at the Heartland Fall Forum, taking place now in Milwaukee.
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| Barbara and Valeria Cerda | |
As noted in an inspiring article on the Midwest Independent Booksellers Association website, La Revo Books has a mission of bringing Black and brown books and authors to the South Side of Milwaukee. With its "storefront-free model," it can "meet people where they're at, even if they think they aren't readers or haven't bought books before. In that vein, Barbara and Valeria have sold books everywhere they can--at power-lifting competition, a low-rider car show, on a boat, and in art galleries, book clubs, fashion shows, theatres, and Milwaukee-area schools and universities, bringing people together to talk about what it means to be Latine in the Midwest."
MIBA executive director Carrie Obry said, "Barbara and Valeria are ideal candidates for this award, having done work that goes beyond the parameters of their own business to inspire an entire community and our bookselling region. These are two working class women from immigrant families who have created a city-wide inspirational bookselling model out of scratch and made the industry stand up and pay attention."
And Kristen Sandstrom, MIBA board president and manager of Apostle Islands Booksellers in Bayfield, Wis., said, "When these two women set their minds to do something, they go in 100%. They saw that their community was missing a very important resource, so even though they both had full-time jobs, they took it upon themselves to fill that void. They set up tables to sell Latinx books at every opportunity they could find. They created a strong, effective, and entertaining social media presence. They have made their voices heard throughout the bookselling community as well. We may never know how lucky we are to have these two energetic, intelligent, book-loving women as a part of our association of bookstores."