In the last couple of weeks, our county has allowed us to return to some indoor shopping as long as masks are utilized and social distancing is practiced. The first visit my kids and I made was to the local Barnes & Noble. We wore our masks and stayed 6 feet away from others and it was wonderful to be back among all the books. It felt almost normal. I did have to ask my kids not to touch everything. We were careful to only pick up the books we were likely to buy. My daughter picked out a new book by a favorite fantasy author and also got a couple of the Warriors cat books to try. My son got a new boxed set of Bob early reader books. He’s reading them on his own.
While (I confess) my kids have been doing way too much screen time, their reading has taken off during this time of lock downs and distancing. I am incredibly proud of both of them. I don’t think they would have been reading like this had we had normal school and normal summer. When we stay so busy we don’t have as much time for pleasure reading.
They are both as excited as I am to visit the bookstore! I so wish we had a local Christian bookstore, too, but ours have closed.
Have you had a chance to return to a bookstore yet? What was your experience? Did it feel normal at all?
I was impressed by the new release section at our store. They had it organized by color! Pretty, but it does make it harder to find a specific book.
Our trip back to the bookstore was disappointing. Lots of blank spaces. Our Barnes and Noble said they were having distribution problems. It was nice to step inside and just soak up being there. Sadly, our community used to have three Christian bookstores and now we have none. We do have one small independent bookstore but they aren’t open back up yet. Hope that’s not a permanent situation. I wonder how long the happiness of getting things back after this year will last.
Oh my. B&N organizing new releases by color? They’ve gone to the dark side . . . unless you’re a designer. LOL.
For awhile we just had curbside delivery, then nothing, and now up to eight shoppers at a time can enter our local bookstore. I donned my mask and went in to pick up my book order. It was so so good to get into the bookstore again and chat with the owner. Unfortunately, when I looked for the fancy chocolate that I often get, the owner laughed and told me that they were reordering … because she and her husband worked alone in the back room filling mail orders and all the stress of Covid resulted in more than one fancy chocolate bar being consumed, ha! They are very good, so I will be back once that truck full of chocolate arrives. Love our bookstores!
There is nothing like going into a bookstore, especially so now that we have had to give that up for some time.
Good for you Rachel, spending time helping your children to learn to love reading.