UXBRIDGE LIVING Blue Heron Books: A Passion for Books That Goes Beyond Four Walls

Blue Heron Books

A Passion for Books That Goes Beyond Four Walls

BY LESLEY WILKINS PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY BLUE HERON

For booklovers and casual shoppers alike, walking in to Blue Heron Books in the heart of historic downtown Uxbridge is like falling into a warm and comforting embrace.

The Handmade Market is held at Blue Heron each holiday season, allowing locals to shop beautiful handcrafted gifts created by local artists.

With its comfy leather chairs and creaky wooden floors, the relaxed traditional vibe could lure you into believing you had stepped back into a time before the emotionally draining days of covid lockdowns and online retail therapy. You won’t encounter any high-pressure sales tactics here. The carefully curated selection of books is beautifully arranged on handcrafted shelves that span the length of the store, quietly inviting visitors to take their time and browse.

While happy to give visitors the freedom to explore the store at their own pace, Blue Heron’s staff are always on-hand to answer questions, or suggest a great read if leisurely perusing the shelves isn’t on your schedule. Blue Heron Books offers visitors a relaxed and thoroughly enjoyable experience. But if charming ambiance and outstanding selection are the cornerstone of this booklover’s paradise how did Blue Heron Books manage to ride the storm of covid shutdowns that kept devoted customers shut outside in the cold?

The secret may just be the boundless resourcefulness, creativity and sheer bull-headed determination of owner Shelley Macbeth and her team of dedicated staff.

When lockdown meant closing Blue Heron’s doors, Macbeth dug her heels in, rallied her team and got to work wrapping, mailing and driving books from one corner of the township to the other as online sales flooded in. Even Uxbridge’s Mayor, Dave Barton, signed up as part of the team, dropping off deliveries across the area.

Shelley Macbeth Blue Heron Books – Award-winning bookseller and owner of Blue Heron Books.

Blue Heron’s children’s section is an inviting space for kids of all ages to browse and find the perfect book. Macbeth’s ability to meet challenges head-on and find creative solutions isn’t something new that emerged with covid. In fact, she has always had a knack for thinking outside of the traditional bookseller’s box - a skill that has twice won her beloved store the Canadian Booksellers Association’s Libris Award for ‘Best Bookseller in Canada.’

While on the surface Blue Heron Books may appear to be simply a charming local bookshop with an unusual passion for local legend Lucy Maud Montgomery, there is a vast and complex machinery in action behind the scenes that has everything to do with Macbeth’s passion for books and little to do with the store itself.

Recognizing long before covid that being an award-winning bookseller required more than a beautiful store, Macbeth and her team embarked on a multifaceted bookselling adventure that would take Blue Heron Books far outside the four walls of the store into schools, libraries, theatres, restaurants and event venues across Durham region, Toronto, York and beyond.

Supporting authors as they travelled through the area promoting their books, providing invaluable insights into the latest children’s and YA books to teacher librarians, as well as hosting and co-hosting live events with some of the world’s most admired writers - including Jane Urquhart, Michael Ondaatje, chef Michael Smith and children’s favourite Dav Pilkey - soon became as much a part of Blue Heron Books as the store itself.

In 2019, Macbeth and her right-hand woman Rebecca Sanger launched their inaugural Book Drunkard Literary Festival, an unprecedented success that featured live sellout events as varied as an evening with John Irving and a Skinnamarink singalong with Sharon and Bram, to name just two.

Undeterred by 2020’s covid restrictions, Macbeth and Sanger took The Book Drunkard Literary Festival online to the delight of book lovers across Canada and once again turned a challenge into an opportunity to reach an even greater audience.

Now, having seen 2021’s summer event season draw to a close with Newfoundland’s phenomenally successful Writers of Woody Point Music and Literary Festival, where Blue Heron Books holds the prestigious role of official event bookseller, Macbeth is back in her beloved store and up to her elbows in novels and bookings as she and Sanger charge ahead with the finishing touches for this fall’s Book Drunkard Literary Festival. This year’s festival, featuring Lucy Black, Alice Hoffman, Chris Hadfield, Linden Macintyre, Michelle Good and many more, promises to be as much a success as the previous two years.

blueheronbooks.com 62 Brock Street West, Uxbridge, Ontario shelley@blueheronbooks.com 905 852 4282 @blueheronbooks @bookdrunkardfest