ROCKLAND—Rockland’s independent bookstore, hello hello and its owner Lacy Simons, received a mention in a New York Times article on Feb. 15, 2017 titled: Bookstores Stoke Trump Resistance With Action, Not Just Words.

The article illuminated the growing grassroots protest movement that is quietly springing up in bookstores across America. In the piece, Simons was quoted: "In the past, we hadn't really been like, 'O.K., here's where we stand,'" said Lacy Simons, the owner of Hello Hello Books in the seaside town of Rockland. Simons said she was jolted into action the day after the election, when customers began drifting into the store, not to buy books, exactly, but in search of solace.

"This is just one of the places where people went," she said. "If they were gutted from the election, people just came in to pet the books."

By petting the books, she meant, people wanted to get their knowledge and information from books again, not the national news.

“Everybody has a third place they go away from home or work,” she said. “Coming into the bookstore was an opportunity for many to have an in-depth conversation or to talk about books that impacted them politically, socially, or emotionally. What we saw was an influx of people coming into the store just to be heard.”

At the American Booksellers Association Winter Institute conference in January, Simons helped spearhead a grassroots meeting with fellow bookshop owners and booksellers on how they could galvanize the natural resistance movement of the left. Dozens of bookshops across the U.S. had already begun creating displays devoted to titles on politics, totalitarianism, corporate influence and fascism. Many of the booksellers are calling the displays the #Resist Table.

As one walks into hello hello tucked in the back of Rock City Café, their #Resist display is front and center. Perched on the shelves upon the table are prescient “negative utopian” novels such as George Orwell’s 1984, and Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, along with nonfiction such as Dark Money: The Hidden History of Billionaires by Jane Mayer, and feminist titles such as Rebecca Solnit’s Men Explain Things To Me.

“We’ve never been shy about the fact that we’re an openly progressive store and obviously feminist,” Simons said. “We also have a lot of people who feel comfortable talking partisan politics with us over the counter.”

Most people who come into Simons’ bookshop are already invested readers, and interested in discovering more books that self-educate.

Yet, a quarter of adults (26 percent) admit that they haven’t read a book in the last year, according to a 2016 Pew Research Center survey. Of those, adults with a high school degree or less are three times as likely as college graduates not to read any books. Conversely, young people are still the future of a vibrant book reading culture with 80% (18-29) more likely than their elders to have read a book in the past 12 months.

“We’ve had a lot of young people come in to buy specifically to understand why our government and society is where it is today,” she said.

Still, she encourages those who’ve never thought to foster their beliefs and opinions from books to get out of their traditional information gathering zones and visit a bookstore.

“For people who are constantly sorting through their Facebook feeds, sifting through a vast amount of opinions and Internet memes, some of the books we carry will show you how systemic what our country is going through at the moment, how complex our U.S. history is and how far back into it reaches,” said Simons. “You will be surprised how much we’ve missed in our high school history classes.”

Simons isn’t just content to get more people self-educating and reading more. She’s interested in promoting action, starting with a Social Justice Reading and Action Group.

“The idea is we’ll be meeting every two to three weeks on some umbrella topics that are loosely arranged around the table of contents of the national bestseller, What We Do Now: Standing Up for Your Values in Trump's America. We’ll give people enough time to absorb each book and will offer a place for moderated, in-depth discussion as well as concrete actions we can take individually and as a group, hopefully in concert with local progressive organizations,” said Simons.

To locate more books on the #Resist list visit hello hello’s website  (under best sellers)and check out the link to the group’s purpose along with other local resources and gatherings.

“We have calling cards we can give people to use to call their representatives,” said Simons. “Even if you’re an introvert and don’t want to pick up the phone or interact with a lot of people, there is still a way for you to take action and do your part.”

 Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com