Indie Bookstore Spotlight: Moon Palace Books

Our indie bookstore partner for March is Moon Palace Books located in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Owners Angela and Jamie Schwesnedl opened the original Moon Palace Books location in 2012 and the store has grown, moving to several different locations over the years. In 2020, the Midwest Independent Booksellers Association awarded Moon Palace Books the "Midwest Bookstore of the Year."

When learning about Moon Palace Books the biggest thing that stood out to me was their strong sense of activism and the way they serve their community. To be fair, I believe these are values held by every indie bookstore that has partnered with Books Inside Boxes. Indie Bookstores are third spaces in communities, and by extension, they often become involved in areas of activism.

Moon Palace Books is located in the neighborhood where George Floyd was murdered in 2020. During the subsequent protests, the store supported their community by engaging with them and serving pizza from the store cafe (name Geek Love Cafe- currently closed) to protestors. The Schwesnedl's refused money for the pizza, directing people to give their money to Floyd's family. Looking through their inventory, they have many books about George Floyd, including children's picture books. Books that help all ages in their community process difficult events and social issues, and even more specifically, something that happened to people in their neighborhood.

Other community outreach programs include hosting a Drag Story Hour Book Drive to support Gillette Children's Hospital. Moon Palace Books participates in the Set Books Free Project. The Set Books Free Project is an initiative from the American Bookseller's Association, that encourages people to purchase banned books from indie bookstores. The bookstores are paired with a grassroots organization in an area where book bans are happening and the store will send the books purchased to the organization for distribution. Read about it here. Moon Palace Books is paired with Annie's Foundation in Iowa for this project.

Moon Palace Books hosts a variety of events, including author signings, poetry slams, and book clubs. An event that is happening right now, as I'm writing this, is their Trans Rights Readathon. This event involves a push to read trans, gender-noncomforming, and nonbinary books in a lead-up to March 31st, which is the International Day of Trans Visibility. On the 31st, Moon Palace Books will be donating 10% of its sales to the Minnesota Transgender Health Coalition.

Our March 2025 Minnesota themed box includes the Sloth logo sticker from Moon Palace Books. Please support Moon Palace Books by stopping by if you're in the area and shopping online if your far away. Moon Palace Books is a fantastic indie bookstore with a big heart for helping others.