"One of the biggest joys for me, in my long career of publishing twenty-something books, has been meeting the independent booksellers. It doesn't matter if you're in Houston, or Wichita, or Mobile, or Nashville, or Miami, or Portland--you get the point--If there's an independent bookstore, there's a cool community, because the independent bookstores serve those communities....
"The support I've gotten from indie booksellers is kind of unprecedented and it embodies the spirit of the yellow bus. It fills her with joy when she is serving others. And I feel like independent booksellers do that same thing. They get joy when they put a book into a customer's hand."
--Loren Long, whose new book The Yellow Bus (Roaring Brook Press) is the #1 July/August Kids' Indie Next List pick, in a q&a with Bookselling This Week