Beautywood Books
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Most eye-catching about North Little Rock’s Beautywood Books (1704 N. Main St.) is the vintage charm of its old-school building. The century-old cottage welcomes visitors with plenty of porch space and a bright red door. Adorned with paper lanterns, potted plants, local art and stacks of community-sourced zines, its interior embodies the whimsical coziness of a fairytale.
Equally warm are its owners, Jo Reinbold, 29, and Jon Reinbold, 32, who are known to greet their customers by name.
The Reinbolds named Beautywood after the theme song to “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood”: “It’s a beautiful day in this neighborhood … it’s a neighborly day in this beauty-wood.”
“That idea of neighborliness and just wanting to make connections was my whole drive for turning our little bookselling enterprise into a true indie bookstore and community hub,” Jo said in an interview with the Arkansas Times. Though the bookstore is now a well-loved community space for artists, writers and social advocates, it started as an online store to fund Jon’s college tuition.
Jo and Jon Reinbold
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Once the idea of a brick-and-mortar store bloomed, Jon and Jo wrote a business plan from scratch and searched for buildings. It was circumstance that allowed them the money for a down payment.
“The one barrier is you need a large amount of money to purchase a commercial building. It dawned on me that we actually did have some money,” Jon said. “Long story short, when I was two, I swallowed an open safety pin and while in the hospital was burned fairly severely. We received a small settlement, which was put in a CD until I was 18 … [It] had grown to a point where we could afford the down payment on a low-cost building using an SBA loan.”
Since opening in 2022, Beautywood has expanded to offer a wide selection of books with the goal of engaging all readers. They carry “a little of everything” secondhand, from vintage mass market paperback classics to manga to valuable early editions of old books. As avid readers, their personal tastes find their way onto the shelves as well. “We also have a special place in our hearts (and shelves) for all sorts of nonfiction, from Marie Kondo to Karl Marx and everything in between,” Jo said.
Beautywood Books
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In addition to curating books, they have also curated a community driven by inclusion and openness. Jo, Jon and their colleague, Vada Magdalena, have strong convictions about what an ideal society looks like. Recently celebrating its second birthday in August, the bookstore has fully embraced its role as a “third place,” a sociological term for an environment that facilitates connection outside of the home and workplace. The bookstore regularly hosts tarot card readings, poetry readings and booths for local artists. They even welcome community members to throw parties at their store.
“My vision of a healthy community is one where everyone is participating, offering up however much or little they can give to benefit others and make positive change, recognizing that no matter who you are, you have something valuable to offer. Beautywood is our ‘something,’” Jo said. “We offer it up to our community and in doing so we try to open the door for others — writers, tech guys, single moms working at Home Depot — to recognize their importance and become active members of their community.”
Doah Strojek, a regular customer at Beautywood, described the store as a space where “everyone is welcome. We are all loved. During a particularly hard time in my life, Beautywood was there for me to lift me up and help me. They provided me a place to feel safe and a community to belong to. I am forever grateful to Jo and Jon for building this place for us and I hope it lasts for many, many years.”
Another customer, Rachel Hale, echoed those feelings of safety. “Every time I enter Beautywood Books, I feel my lungs expand and my shoulders ease,” she said. “On regular outings to the space, I’ve made new friendships, learned new skills and often discovered new authors who become staples on my bookshelf.”
Each month, Beautywood hosts Bookstore Open Floor, a themed open mic-esque gathering for attendees to share creative works, stories, anecdotes, jokes or whatever they wish before a supportive audience. The get-togethers often spill into the store’s backyard, where guests sprawl across blankets or lounge in camping chairs.
In June 2024, Beautywood joined forces with Calm+Confidence Beekeeping, a business that partners with schools and community organizations to educate about biodiversity preservation and the importance of pollinators. “They wanted their new space to function as a true third place,” Jo explained. “They asked us to set up a little free library — what we call the ‘Little Bee Library’ — filled with books for their in-house library as well as ones that people can take home.”
In return, Calm+Confidence installed a beehive in Beautywood’s backyard and holds free monthly workshops on bees and beekeeping at the bookstore. “I still can’t believe what an incredible cross-pollination this has been,” Jo said.
Many of their local partnerships and collaborations have come about organically.
“We met Hayden [Kelly] and Marine [Manceau] of Marché Farm at a rally for trans rights in early 2023 — and when we sat down to talk we realized that we can help each other out or come together on a project in some really beautiful way,” Jo said. “Even though we are still fairly young and growing, we want to use every bit of platform and privilege we have to uplift those around us, whether that be fellow small business owners, local artists or just neighbors in need.” With Marché Farm, they have created a community garden co-op and occasional movie nights, recently screening the 2022 documentary “Allies Welcome” in the hopes of inspiring “our community to engage in local solidarity while maintaining a global perspective.”
They also use their store as a space for advocates to distribute resources and garner support. Their latest collaboration is with Arkansas Community Advocates, a charity organization focused on providing essentials such as food and hygiene products for those in need. Recently, the organization set up boxes in front of the store for free pantry items and community resource guides.
“Food has been flowing out of that box steadily ever since,” Jo said. “Our customers have been amazing, bringing food items to keep it stocked. One customer even spearheaded a drive to fill up not just our little free pantry, but several bins of nonperishable foods and dry goods for ACA and the Compassion Center.”
Beautywood Books
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“I believe that, as social primates, community is quite literally the answer to many of the social ills we face today,” bookseller Vada Magdalena said. “Our isolation and reactivity stem from nervous systems that no longer experience a sense of belonging. For the majority of human history, we lived in tribal societies, and it’s within those communities that we evolved. The loss of that deep, communal connection has caused profound harm to most people, leaving us disconnected from one another and from ourselves.”
The future promises exciting growth for Beautywood Books. “More poetry events, more bee workshops, more storytimes, more bookstore crawls and more community advocacy” are only a handful of things on the horizon for Jo and her colleagues.
“We aim to cultivate a web of mutual aid and support for those committed to moving beyond the American ideal of hyper-individualism. With numerous plans already in motion, our vision is expansive and our dreams are boundless,” Jo said.