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Your LOCAL Media since 1918! VOLUME 108: ISSUE 13
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Wednesday, November 19, 2025
Young entrepreneur opens bookstore in Ryley
KARI JANZEN PHOTO
Adri Freeman, 16, has opened her own bookstore in Ryley.
Kari Janzen Staff Reporter
Tofield School graduate and entrepreneur Adri Freeman, 16, of Ryley, has opened a bookstore on main street Ryley, with her grand opening scheduled for Saturday, Nov. 22. Freeman has always had a love for books and coupled with the fact that she much more enjoys working for herself than for someone else, she decided to start her own business. “After I finished working at the food truck, I started at Boston Pizza in July,
and while I liked my employers, they're amazing, I didn't like some of the rules. I kept thinking, I would do this differently if I had my own business and that’s when it clicked,” Freeman said. Freeman has classics, books on teenage mental health, mystery and suspense, fantasy, special and collectors editions, romance, seasonal, and children’s books. “Yes, Ryley has a library, but some people like to own books. The library also doesn't always have the most popular books, or special editions,”
Freeman said. Freeman said that most of what is on her shelves are overstock books or second-hand, some even from her own collection. “Some books have a black Sharpie mark on them from when the bigger companies marked them overstock before shipping them off to other providers who will sell them for less. Some of the second-hand books show a little bit of wear and tear, but they are very much lightly used,” she said. Freeman hopes to add to the shelves every other week or so, depending on
how sales are going, and said that she can special order books that customers request. “They would need to know that it would take longer to get in, but I'm going to have a sign-up sheet where they can list what they’re looking for, and I’ll try to find it for them. I'm trying not to order from Amazon or Indigo because I don't want to support billionaire companies. “I very much want to support indie authors, young, and lesser-known authors because they need somewhere to Continued on Page 4