Today was a hot, muggy, overcast day, with a threat of rain, so it was the perfect day to do a few of our shopping errands. First we visited a quilt shop and a cross-stitch shop (next door to one another) which were about 20 minutes from my mom's house in Catonsville. I only bought two things in the quilt shop, as I have acquired a lot of free fabric on this trip already, but it's still fun to visit. I did pick up a couple of cross-stitch patterns, including one I will stitch as a gift for my mom and one for Hallowe'en.
And then we popped over to the Barnes & Noble in Ellicott City, which is nearby. My mother had a lot (and I mean a LOT) of gift cards for Barnes & Noble - acquired from accumulating point on one of her credit cards, and she had been promising to treat us all to some books (or whatever) from there, during our visit. We could each spent approximately $50, so we were like kids in a candy store.
Sarah selected a number of items from the teen fiction section - she reads a variety of stuff: the better end of teen fantasy and supernatural stuff, among other things. It's hard sometimes to tell what will be good, but she had fun picking things out. She also reads some classics, and other general fiction (she's working her way, slowly, through Game of Thrones, for instance, but they are very very long and she gets a bit bored sometimes!) I suggest things I own which I think she'd like, as well.
Olivia has a harder time choosing books, because she's not really into most fantasy/supernatural stuff or the kind of teen romances that tend to pervade teen fiction these days. She loves historical fiction and has read all of the classic historical children's series like Anne of Green Gables, Little Women, Little House on the Prairie, the "Shoes" books by Noel Streatfeild, and so on. She's getting a little old for those now, and anyway, she has read all of them, so there aren't any left. She loved the Cat Royal books by Julia Golding and recently, she's been reading the Sally Lockhart quartet by Philip Pullman. We looked a lot of books in teen, adult and children's sections for her and ended up with a small but interesting assortment. The Kitchen House is an adult fiction book, I think, but was on a table in the teen section with books they thought might appeal to teens - it looks promising - about a white servant on a plantation and her relationships with the slaves and the white owners. The other two came from the childrens' section - but for older kids. Island of the Blue Dolphins I read when I was about her age, and loved (didn't we all?) so I suggested it. The other, I don't know, but looks like a nice coming of age story, and as it's a Newberry winner, it should be good. She looked at, and eventually decided against, about 4 other books, including A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, which was on the same table as the Kitchen House, but which she thought sounded a little too adult for her. I think she might like it, so will bear it in mind for future.
Alex is a little easier to find books for, as he will read almost anything. The main problem for him in choosing books in a large bookshop is that so many of the books aimed at children these days are aimed at encouraging reluctant readers, so they don't have quite as much substance as he likes (e.g. he's never really got into chapter books, except as a very new reader). So I go along and pull out 7 or 8 books I think he might like and he chooses from them, after looking at the blurb. The Cornelia Funke, we know he will enjoy, as we've read other of her books. The other three books at the top, are new to us (though I've seen the Warrior Cat series before - if he likes those, there are dozens of them to read!). Unfortunately, they didn't have the one Madeline L'Engle he hasn't read in the Wrinkle in Time series or any Dianne Wynne Jones which he hadn't read/didn't own. But that's ok - we like to try new things. I also suggested he might like Mrs Basil E Frankweiler, which I remember reading as a kid and just loving.
And finally, me. I actually only bought one book, as I had just the day before been to a used bookstore and bought 6 books there (well, 7 - one for Alex)! But I picked up this one, The Chaperone, as well as book 2 in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series, not for me, but because Geoff is reading them to Alex as bedtime books, and we only own the first own. The last three times I've been in UK bookstores, they've had every book in the series but the second one...
I did, however, get a 2014 calendar, which I will need very soon after I get back to the UK, and a couple of family games, both to play here and to take home with us.
All in all, quite a successful trip! And not only did we spend no money at all in the bookshop, Mom even had giftcards leftover for another time. (She bought books too, but I haven't showed them.) We topped it off with a stop at Walmart on the way home - not my first choice of shops for various reasons, but Olivia in particular wanted to go see what one was like - they hear about them a lot in American books, films, TV shows, etc, and wanted to have Walmart experience. Both girls managed to find some inexpensive clothes they like, and although I don't really approve of their ethics (and prefer Target anyway as inexpensive department stores go), I can live with one trip in 3 or more years...
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