- Michelle Tuplin’s independent bookstore, Serendipity Books, signed a new lease just down the road from its original location — but she still had to move more than 9,000 books.
- People immediately began reaching out, asking how they could help with the move, inspiring the now-viral “book brigade.”
- In an interview with PEOPLE, Tuplin reveals what her backup plan was.
After Michelle Tuplin announced that her independent bookstore, Serendipity Books in Chelsea, Michigan, had signed a new lease just down the road in January, people immediately began reaching out, asking how they could help with the move.
Tuplin, who has owned the store since 2017, knew she wanted to say yes to everyone. She says people truly think of independent bookstores as part of the community — they feel a sense of ownership. So, she started brainstorming how to include everybody. That’s when the idea hit her: a book brigade.
“I thought it would be a really inclusive way that would both be quick and effective to move books and keep them in order, but also to be able to involve everybody who wants to be a part of this thing,” the 53-year-old store owner tells PEOPLE exclusively.
After signing the new lease, Tuplin floated the idea to a few customers. With their encouragement — and support from her team of three part-time booksellers — she decided to go for it. They printed flyers, posted them around town, shared the message on social media and included it in their newsletter. They told customers at the counter — and then crossed their fingers.
The plan if no one showed up? “We didn’t really have one, even if it rained,” Tuplin laughs. “There were a few people who can’t be named, who definitely thought it was a little bit crazy because… we didn’t have a signup. We had no idea. So we just truly had to trust that feeling that we had enough community support and go with it and see what happened.”
But thankfully, everything came together — serendipitously.
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On the day of the book brigade, Tuplin asked people to show up around 1 p.m. A few early birds arrived to help the team get sorted and ready. Then, around 12:40 p.m., people began to trickle in. They didn’t have an agenda in place for how to organize the volunteers, so they improvised. They told people to form a line and start passing down books.
“Then at one, I came out of the store to see how far the line was, and it was just so overwhelming,” Tuplin says. “It went all the way down around the corner and it was amazing. And then everybody was so excited and so happy, and they cheered and clapped. And of course, I tried really hard not to cry — and failed horribly.”
“When I came down the steps at the very beginning, I saw my son’s second-grade teacher, who taught him about — I don’t know — 17 years ago. And she gave me a big hug, and that was a big surprise. I didn’t expect to see her. And she was the person who made me burst into tears, actually, at that point… I think how happy everybody was and how enthusiastic they were to be a part of this thing — that surprised me.”
By then, the line had grown to more than 300 people, ranging in age from 5 or 6 years old to 91. Together, over the course of two hours, they moved all 9,100 books from the store’s old location to its new, larger storefront.
To thank volunteers, Serendipity offered lemonade and cookies. After the final book was passed down the line, everyone gathered in the new shop to celebrate together.
“I knew 60% of the people probably,” Tuplin says. “The others — cars came through town, people stopped and got out of their car to help. That happened. So we didn’t know everybody, but we knew a lot of people. And people in the line — if they didn’t know the person next to them, they did by the end. They made friends, they talked books, they were singing together and having a great time.”
“People talk about how important independent bookstores are and what a central role they play in the community, but we could actually see it that day. And that was just unforgettable,” she adds.
Not long after the brigade, Kaci, one of the store’s booksellers, posted a video of the event on TikTok. Since then, the clip has gone viral, amassing over 1.6 million views and more than 5,500 comments. For Tuplin, it’s still hard to wrap her head around that number.
“There were comments from Australia, Japan, Spain — and people just really want to read happy stories right now and find, I guess, stories where humanity is seen,” she says. “There were a number of people who said, ‘Thank you for doing this. We just really needed this right now.’ That was a big one. Another one said, ‘You have reaffirmed my faith in humanity.’ That was a good one.”
The sense of joy has continued in the days since. Since this unfolded, Tuplin has seen people on the street, gone to yoga or visited the coffee shop, and has been showered with lots of hugs and thank-yous.
“The whole town right now is just so buzzed, because it’s really not just with the story going viral — it’s no longer just a story about the bookstore,” she adds. “It’s a story about our town as well. And so everybody’s just so excited to be a part of this thing. And I think the thank-yous and the expressions of gratitude are going to go on for a very long time.”
Now that the move is complete, Tuplin and her team are working hard to get the new space unpacked and ready. The store is currently closed and will reopen in its new location on April 26, which is also Independent Bookstore Day. However, the website is still open for taking orders.
“I think it’s just going to be such a great space. It’s just going to be gorgeous. And I just think we’re going to go from strength to strength. I hope we get more authors visiting and are able to do more events — just more of the same… We are never going to lose that community connection. We’re always going to know the names of our customers’ dogs.”
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