Nathan Bransford - The Forums

Given the more-or-less constant barrage of sad news about bookstores closing their doors, it’s easy to imagine a sort of anti-intellectual Grinch gleefully rubbing his hands together in anticipation of a bookless Christmas this year. (“I must stop children from reading!” he exclaims, smashing a Kindle and dumping stack after forlorn stack of paperbacks into his sack.)

But, as the season’s first snow flurries fell in New York yesterday morning, we awoke to news of a Christmas miracle in a faraway land. Could it be? Charlie McClurg, a third-grader in Dalton, Georgia, wished for a bookstore. But instead of sending his request to Santa Claus, he launched a letter-writing campaign begging Books-A-Million to open a branch in his hometown. On Friday, the Dalton Daily Citizen reports, Clyde B. Anderson, the Books-A-Million chairman and C.E.O, came to Westwood Elementary School to deliver the good news: a new bookstore will indeed open at the nearby Walnut Square Mall, perhaps even in time for Christmas.

Finally, and most sappily, I’m pleased to hear that Charlie and friends still like to visit bookstores, and that they’ve now learned something about the power of the written word. Those letters got someone’s attention. They made a bookstore appear out of thin air. It’s a bit of magic that I suspect the children will remember for years to come. Maybe some of them will go on to become writers. At the very least, let’s hope that they all keep reading. As we grumble and wring our hands over the future of book publishing, we must remember to celebrate the small victories.