La Revo Books honored as Midwest Booksellers of the Year
During the pandemic, dreams were fostered, cradled, and sometimes came true. Such is the case for Barbara and Valeria Cerda, sisters who took this challenging period of history and turned out gold in the form of La Revo Books on the South Side of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Looking around their community in 2020, everywhere they saw people helping people, and during one many walks with her daughter, Barbara noticed that many Little Free Libraries were empty. They went home, gathered books to donate, and used social media to invite people to donate books with them, doing porch pick-ups and distributing books safely to Little Free Libraries throughout local neighborhoods. Barbara says, “It started out just as something to do during the pandemic, but after thinking about it deeper, we realized the significance, with libraries closed and schools shut down, we were also engaging in our own mutual aid project.”
Calling herself Barby the Book Fairy, and founder of “Milwaukee's Biggest Free Library,” Barbara began to apply for grants. After getting rejected, she tried again, stressing the importance of bringing Black and brown books and authors to an area of Milwaukee that truly needed it. After much perseverance, she received $1,000 in grant money to purchase new books.
That’s when Valeria got involved, and together they made their dream shopping list of books, only to learn that independent bookstores in town didn't carry all of the books they wanted to buy. With the realization that there was no place in the city to buy Latino books, in January 2021, they made a business plan and decided to open a bookstore.
“From day one, we knew it would be mission-based,” says Valeria. “Reading is a relationship that needs to be rekindled and reinvigorated within our community. When we said we were doing this, our dad said, ‘Mexicans don’t read,’ but when one of our first pop-ups made $1,500, he had to reconsider.”
“Making money is not what makes this a good thing,” says Barbara. La Revo’s main audience is non-readers, which demonstrates the depth of their mission. On the day they wrote their business plan, their paternal grandmother, Fidela, died, and within the next few days, so did their uncle, Jorge. A month later, their maternal grandmother, Juanita, also passed away. La Revo Books was born during a time of incredible grief and serves to honor their own family’s revolutions. “Our grandmothers would understand that selling books is a personal revolution, as many of our relatives couldn’t read or had limited literacy skills,” says Valeria.
La Revo’s storefront-free model has become emblematic of their mission to 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.
New York Times bestselling author Xochitl Gonzalez says, “As Wisconsin’s only Latinx-owned bookstore, and with their roving, mobile business model, they have used the lack of a physical footprint to their advantage to go to where their customers are. They are really using the written word and books to bring people together and get books by and about communities that might not otherwise get them. Barbara and Valeria don’t just have an impact on their community, they have created community.”
After gaining support, recognition, and dozens of high-profile media placements for La Revo, Barbara and Valeria were invited to join a cooperative artists’ space and sell books from MARN—Milwaukee Artist Resource Network—in Milwaukee’s Third Ward, strategically increasing Latine representation and gaining them recognition in Best of Milwaukee 2024 by Milwaukee magazine.
“I’m thrilled to celebrate La Revo Books and their incredible impact on Milwaukee’s South Side,” says Marcela “Xela” Garcia, executive director of Walker’s Point Center for the Arts. “Their unwavering commitment ensures everyone in the barrio sees themselves reflected in the stories they read. Their passion for making literature accessible to all has been transformative—we are proud to stand alongside them in this journey, honoring our shared heritage and community values.”
On an industry level, the bookselling world routinely sees Barbara and Valeria hold space for their entire community by entering venues with extremely limited Latinx representation and advocating for Spanish-language reading materials and representation. Carrie Obry, executive director of the Midwest Independent Booksellers Association (MIBA), says, “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.”
When they talk about bringing their Black and brown-inspired bookselling model to the book trade, it’s with the recognition of the many challenges involved. When they tried to order El Salvadorian authors for an event, they couldn’t find them at Ingram, the industry’s largest wholesaler, and they had to “pull rabbits out of hats” to get what they needed. They recount stories of going to their first book industry trade shows, where they’d meet publishers, ask for their Latino books, and be told they didn’t have any. Eventually, publishers learned who they are, and now many sales reps bring products specifically for them. Barbara and Valeria give a big shout-out to Chris Conti, former sales rep at IPG, who quickly became their champion, and to Gibbs Smith, publisher of the Little Libros series, which is easily a third of La Revo’s sales. “If you don’t carry these you’re leaving money on the table,” says Valeria.
La Revo’s industry-wide impact is echoed by Kristen Sandstrom, MIBA’s board president and manager of Apostle Islands Booksellers in Bayfield, Wisconsin. “When these two women set their minds to do something, they go in 100 percent. 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.”
Do these passionate bookselling sisters want a storefront of their own? “It’s hard to not feel deterred from wanting one,” says Barbara. “We know there’s a way to make it work in the future, but we’re having too much fun to think about selling books any other way.”
La Revo’s bookselling sisters will be celebrated by our industry at Heartland Fall Forum on October 6-9 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
