Over the Moon Bookstore Opens

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Laura and Anne DeVault
Laura and Anne DeVault

Sisters Laura and Anne DeVault opened Over The Moon Bookstore and Artisan Gallery June 27 in the space formerly occupied by Arlington West Hair Salon, two doors down from Crozet Pizza.

“We want to be Crozet’s community bookstore,” said Laura. “We’re an independent bookstore, not a chain. We can reflect the wants and make-up of our community. We are small, but we can get anything anybody wants to read.”

The store opened with an inventory of around 5,000 volumes. The DeVaults recently returned from Book Expo America in New York City, a major national convention in the book trade, where they met publishers and authors and caught up on trends and forecasts in the book world. “We know what is moving at other independent bookstores,” said Anne.

Both are avid readers as well and students of what is worth reading, they said.

The space, renovated over the last six months, now features handsome shelving and a new bay window. The children’s corner has a second small crawl-through opening to make it a little special to youngsters. Sections of the store are organized into the gamut of reading interests: fiction, mystery, biography, history, current events, science, natural history, spirituality, cooking, gardening, children’s and local interest subjects.

The store hopes to become Crozet’s literary and art hub. It will host art exhibit openings that the DeVaults are calling “Second Saturdays” every month. The first will feature oil paintings by Krista Thompson. Pollak Vineyards of Greenwood will be pouring and selling its wines for the occasion from 6 to 9 p.m. on July 10.

It will also offer opportunities to meet local authors—Katherine Erskine, author of Mockingbird, a work of young adult fiction, is up first—as well as story times on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays at 11 a.m. when the DeVaults will read aloud to kids. “We think it’s really fun to do that,” said Laura.

The store also plans to raise money for a fund that will provide books to families that move into houses built by Habitat for Humanity. “Books in household and the amount of time adults there spend reading are an important indicator of academic success,” said Anne.

“I’ve wanted to have a bookstore since I was 12,” said Anne, formerly a teacher of grades K through 3.

“And I’ve always wanted to live in one,” added Laura, formerly a pediatric nurse and also an instructor in Nia, a dancelike style of exercise.

They describe themselves as “best friends since forever.”

“We have so much fun together,” Laura said. “We are good laughers.”

The store’s name refers to both the famous nursery rhyme and the old idiom meaning ecstatically happy.

The store, across the corner from Crozet Dairy Queen, is open from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays and from noon to 5 p.m. on Sundays.

1 COMMENT

  1. I need a copy of Deer Hunting with Jesus. Do you by chance have it.

    Email response great. If you need, 823.6902.

    Best, d

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