Morning Star Bookshop Rises in Phoenixville

At Morning Star Bookshop in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, you can start a good book in a cozy antique rocker and then purchase both to recreate the experience at home. Owner Rebekah Ray's two-and-a-half-month-old bookshop occupies a thousand square feet of a 2,500-square-foot space long occupied by Bridge Street Fine Arts & Antiques. Ray and Bridge Street owner Dale Martin cover for each other's shops since the proprietors employ no other staff, and Ray also runs a bed & breakfast, full time. Morning Star describes its collection as "selected books and craft materials for all ages."

Phoenixville, on the Schuykill River, 25 miles from Philadelphia, is rising from the ashes of a former steel town. It has been reinventing itself into a thriving community with a lively Main Street full of restaurants, cafes, antique shops, and a former vaudeville theater retrofitted to present films and live performances. The Main Street businesses have joined together to stay open late on the first Friday of every month. In December, stores are open until 9:00 p.m. every Friday night, to offer a mall-ternative for holiday shoppers.

A children's librarian for 25 years, Ray made the move to Phoenixville from Philadelphia about three years ago, with the intention of starting some business ventures, particularly a bookstore. She began by rehabilitating a big old house for the inn and looked around for a venue for a bookstore. Several years passed before she found the ideal spot and had the time to launch a store. Sharing the space and the staffing responsibilities with Martin has worked out perfectly for both shops. Ray rises at 5:30 a.m. and serves breakfast to the B&B's guests until 9:00 a.m. The bookstore opens at 11:00 a.m. "I work 16 hours a day," Ray told BTW, "but I only work 16 hours a week and every other weekend at the shop. Our schedules dovetail nicely. We both are connected by cell phone to answer any questions on the spot if a customer expresses interest or wants to know if we have a certain book."

Ray told BTW that she opened on September 18 as a Book Sense store. She uses a number of sources, including the Book Sense Picks, to guide her selections. "Before opening the store, I talked to a lot of people," Ray explained. "I talked to community members about what they wanted. We're never going to offer the selection that the big guys have, but when people come here, they know they don't have to wade through a lot of commercial stuff to find quality. We stock classic and selected older children's books, fiction, and poetry -- about half children's books and half poetry and fiction. We also specialize in craft materials, craft books, and books about antiques.

"We don't have the space for readings and signings, but we're going to try a knitting circle. That would fit in well since people always comment that [coming to the store] is like entering someone's home library and talking about the books -- not at all like a big box chain store. It's a labor of love -- the bookstore." --Nomi Schwartz