a bitter(sweet) farewell
We had some heartbreaking news this week, when our local independent children's bookstore announced they were closing their doors, today. Like many independent small businesses in our town, they've struggled with rising rents and taxes while losing customers to big box stores and the evil Amazon low-price empire. I rarely buy books from Amazon, unless I'm impatient to buy something before it comes out in paperback or just can't find it locally (and even then I check Powell's first). I prefer the instant gratification of walking into a bookstore and picking up a fresh new book. And for children's books, we've bought ours nearly entirely from A Likely Story which is a short walk from our house, just past the playground and on our way to other shopping. Even though we have a Barnes & Noble discount card, I didn't mind paying full price for kid's books as I considered it a fair price to support this wonderful place where the boy enjoyed so many fun story times and most recently their little wood play house. During my maternity leave and later with his Aunt-Nanny, the boy attended many of their story times, dancing, clapping, and eventually running off and discovering the joy of pulling books off the shelves. Just last week, home for Veteran's Day we went back for a story time and ran into a mom's group friend. Owen and her daughter had a blast pulling books off a shelf and then putting them back, and O even sat down on a bottom shelf and "read" himself a story. But unfortunately, while their story times were always packed -- with rows of strollers parked out front -- they just weren't receiving enough support from the community. They recently had to begin charging for story times, since so many people came and didn't bother to buy anything. (We nearly always managed to pick up a new book or two.) Apparently that wasn't enough. The news was posted on a local moms' listserv earlier this week that they were having a closing sale. I took the boy there one last time last night, and bought the next to last board book on their now barren shelves. The boy wandered through the quiet store and got a farewell pat on the head from the proprietor.
FIND YOUR LOCAL, INDEPENDENT CHILDREN'S BOOKSELLER.
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