Jason Duke
3 months ago
My son shares my love of books and bookstores and he was so excited to find this one. I walked around the book store with my son looking at different books and trying to narrow down our selection. We both had 4-5 books in hand when we sat down to look through them. I proceeded to quietly read aloud to my son from one particular book. We were enjoying ourselves for about 10min when my son said, mom, I think we have this one at home. As I stood up, the clerk asked, “would you like me to ring this book up for you?” I told her, “I think we might have this one, do you know if this author has written any other books?” Barely looking up from her internet browser, she responded, “I don’t know, but if you spend so much time here looking at a book, I’d appreciate it if you’d purchase it”. I was shocked. We had no less than 8 hardcover books in our hands to purchase, well over $100 and this snarky comment is all we get?! And no willingness to properly answer my question as to whether they had any other titles from the same author! Needless to say, I put all but one book back on the shelf and instructed my son to do the same. We made our small purchase and promptly left.
I rarely leave reviews and certainly never a negative review, but I’m so upset over the experience I just had. Maybe others are correct and this store just doesn’t like children/families (although my son is 10 and was very appropriately behaved in store). Maybe I missed a sign instructing people not to open any of the books. Maybe they should remove the cozy seating to limit time spent there. In a world where everything can be bought (often times cheaper) with the click of a button, I enjoy supporting brick and mortar, small businesses. This was quite sad.