WASHINGTON — In the past, award-winning author and D.C. native Jason Reynolds would spend Thanksgiving week doing book signings and other events at area bookstores in efforts to drum up support for local small businesses and the communities they serve.
With small shops and their customers both struggling financially during this pandemic, Jason decided to take it a step farther this year, announcing through social media on Tuesday that he bought out all of his own books, his entire inventory of works, at stores across the District so that customers could get them for free.
For those not aware, Tuesday was Giving Tuesday, and he gave all his novels, books of poetry, the Miles Morales: Spider-Man book he has written and his latest best seller, “Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You,” a young adult adaptation of Dr. Ibram Kendi’s seminal book, Stamped From The Beginning.
Reynolds cites bookstores as the glue that binds many communities and he hoped that by doing this it would bring customers into stores, which must have worked because the books reportedly went fast, most, gone by Wednesday.