On April 27, book enthusiasts across Canada will celebrate Canadian Independent Bookstore Day. Spearheaded by the Retail Council of Canada, the day draws attention to the community-building role of independent bookstores. This is s selection of what participating booksellers have in store.

Blue Heron Books
62 Brock St. W., Uxbridge, Ontario
Blue Heron has a full day of programming for the whole family, kicking off at 10 a.m. with a Lorax-themed party for kids ages two through six. A live music showcase takes over the shop from 11 a.m. through 2:20 p.m. Order of Canada actor Ken Welsh arrives at 2:30 to recite Shakespeare selections about music and poetry in honour of Shakespeare’s 455th birthday, with complimentary cake. Welsh will stick around for a reprisal of the Lorax, this time for the six-and-up set.

Cafe Books
#100 – 826 Main Street, Canmore, Alberta
It’s a double author appearance at Café Books. The store will host signings by Jeremy Kroeker, editor of the motorcycle travel anthology Motorcycle Messengers 2: Tales From The Road (Oscillator Press), and Therese Greenwood, author of What You Take With You: Wildfire, Family and the Road Home (University of Alberta Press), between 12 and 4 p.m.

Queen Books
914 Queen St. E., Toronto
No need to nab Avengers tickets – Queen Books is presenting the ultimate team-up with an all-female (plus Naben Ruthnum) slate of 12 authors including Claudia Dey, Anne T. Donahue, and Vikki VanSickle, appearing as guest booksellers at a sidewalk sale that will be held from 9:30 a.m. until 6 p.m.

Biblioasis
1520 Wyandotte St E., Windsor, Ontario
Following the success of Jorge Carrión’s Independent Bookstore Day exclusive chapbook Against Amazon, a critical essay about how the popular shopping portal has been bad for the book industry, Biblioasis is publishing British author Lucy Ellman’s I Dated Graham Greene, which publisher Dan Wells calls “a tongue-in-cheek exploration of bookstores” (the titular Canadian actor’s connection to the work is left for curious readers to discover – Wells says only that Greene is “intimately” connected).

Volume One Bookstore
149 Kenneth Street, Duncan, B.C.
Author Teresa Schapansky will sign copies of her non-fiction book Memoirs of a Pakhtun Immigrant and children’s fantasy novels Dager of the Tasman Empire and Imogene of the Pacific Kingdom from 11 a.m. through 12 p.m.