President Barack Obama celebrated Small Business Saturday with his daughters, Malia and Sasha, by visiting a bookstore in Northwest Washington, D.C.
The Huffington Post, citing pool reports, said that the president purchased several books at Politics & Prose, including Harold and the Purple Crayon, The Kite Runner and Collision Low Crossers: A Year Inside the Turbulent World of NFL Football.
Previous Small Business Saturday stops have included Kramerbooks in Dupont Circle, where he made a variety of purchases, including The Invention of Hugo Cabret and Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Cabin Fever. In 2012, he stopped at One More Page Books, where he bought 15 children's books that were handed out as Christmas gifts.
The day is designed to foster business at mom-and-pop shops like Politics & Prose and the Bath Cottage, a 36-year-old bed and bath retailer in Cocoa, Fla. Increasingly, small businesses are being subsumed by big-box and online retailers that offer sales on Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
"Small business is something that Americans are losing sight of with Internet buying and big-box stores," Theresa Mitchell, who owns the Bath Cottage with her mother Jan Stewart, told USA Today. "Some people are forgetting that small businesses are very much a part of their community."
Read more at Huffington Post and USA Today.