Shop Talk with Ashley Valentine of Rooted MKE
Ashley Valentine is the founder and owner of Rooted MKE, a BIPOC children’s bookstore, makerspace, and academic support center. Rooted MKE opened in March 2022 and is based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. You can follow Rooted MKE on Instagram. Tell me about your journey to becoming a bookseller. I would certainly say that I am a non-traditional bookseller and bookstore owner. My background is in education; I was previously a Special Education Teacher and owning a bookstore was a dream that I didn’t know would ever come to fruition in the way that it had. I opened Rooted MKE to serve a need for Milwaukee. As an educator, the stories within the curriculum, in my school libraries and provided in my classroom did not look like the community I was serving. I often felt that the challenges many of my students faced related to comprehension and reluctance to experience literature were attributed to the lack of representation. I also felt that there was a lack of community outside of the school setting for families looking for …