Bookstock, metro Detroit’s largest used book and media sale, returns for its 21st year to Laurel Park Place in Livonia on April 27-May 4. The event offers nearly 400,000 used books, DVDs, CDs, books on tape and vinyl records available at discounted prices. Unsold items are donated to nonprofits and charities across metro Detroit. 

Bookstock isn’t just a sale, however. It’s a community-driven initiative that supports education and literacy projects across the metro Detroit region and beyond. The Bookstock Fund, established from the revenue of each year’s sale and generous donations, enables the organization to support literacy through book clubs, poetry slams, and innovative literacy programs like the Einstein Method. 

The annual event also features the B.E.S.T. Awards essay contest, open to fourth-grade students in the Detroit Public Schools Community District. The contest’s goal is to foster a culture of literacy and creativity among Detroit’s youth. Damir Archer, a student at Mary McLeod Bethune Elementary-Middle School, was the 2024 Bookstock B.E.S.T. Awards winner. 

“American Black Journal” host Stephen Henderson talks with Alycia Meriweather, deputy superintendent at Detroit Public Schools Community District and Bookstock Honorary Chancellor, about how the event promotes literacy, reading and writing in Detroit schools. They also discuss the literacy goals of DPSCD and how students are progressing.  

Plus, Henderson talks with Archer about the book that he wrote about in his winning entry. Archer’s teacher, Kenneth Powers, speaks to how the essay contest motivates students to write and read.