I love summer; it’s a great time to be a bookseller in a small town. Kids as young as seven ride their bikes to the store from their houses in the village. No one ever uses the bike rack, they just drop their bikes on the lawn and hang their helmets on the handle bars of bikes and bustle into the store.<\/p>\n
There is freedom in coming to the store alone. Kids can browse without parental hindrance or guidance. The only thing that needs to happen is the kids need to have money. Now, money to grown-ups often comes out of a wallet or perhaps a pocket. With kids, it’s a little different.<\/p>\n
Kid money sometimes comes out of a wallet. Oddly these days that wallet is made out of duct tape. I don’t really understand how the dollars just don’t ripped or stuck, but they don’t seem to. Did you know duct tape comes in a variety of colors that extend far beyond silver and black? I’ve seen red, blue and even purple.<\/p>\n
Kid money, though, mostly comes in the forms of balls. Balls of dollar bills wrapped tightly around a core of coins. These balls appear from the depths of backpacks or are held, clutched in small hands until the first layer of dollars is just a little damp. In all the anxiety of picking the right book, sometimes these money balls get squeezed, almost like a hand exerciser. Ringing up a ball of money takes a long time. What seems like a lot of money usually turns out to be not quite enough. First you have to peel the ball apart carefully so as not to rip the bills. Then you lay them out flat and then you count the coins. I once had a kid who had ten dollars in quarters wrapped by twelve singles — pretty impressive. I really wanted to iron the bills; they were so wrinkled, they would not lie flat in the cash register drawer.<\/p>\n
My favorite kid with money is the really little kid. The one who is still learning what the coins mean, the one who comes in with Mom and Dad. These kids have bags of change, or in several cases, they just bring their piggy bank right into the store. It always breaks my heart a little to see a kid shaking that last dime out of Miss Bianca (as one girl named her bank) to see if she had enough money to get her early reader. And what kills me is they never factor in tax. Ever. So now you’ve spent ten minutes watching some little person struggle to organize and count out the coins. Sometimes they start over several times to get the counting out rhythm right. I let them do it all rather than leap in. It’s cute to watch, and how else are they going to learn? They count and then they come up short. They ask again what the total is, $5.25 I tell them. They have $4.83.<\/p>\n
At this point, little lips start quavering. This is the one time I get to be a magician. We always have a stash of change for just these occasions. For some reason there are lots of adults who no longer want their change and they basically donate it back to the store, so we use for the kids. With a flourish, I add the missing forty two cents. Smiles abound.<\/p>\n
I like being the place where children can count out their grubby money and not feel rushed. It’s oddly cozy for me to watch and listen as little kids count out coins and bills. And what really thrills me is these kids are saving their allowance for books. Imagine, saving money to buy books! The best part about this is the kids usually hug their book on the way out of the store.<\/p>\n
Oh, and what’s really interesting is, kids always want a bag.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I love summer; it’s a great time to be a bookseller in a small town. Kids as young as seven ride their bikes to the store from their houses in the village. No one ever uses the bike rack, they just drop their bikes on the lawn and hang their helmets on the handle bars […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=268"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}