My B&N Weekend

This Saturday I drove seven of my students to Barnes and Noble where they picked out a bunch of new books and movies for our school library. It was much fun, even when they kept trying to sneak OT and M graphic novels onto the book cart, or when they slipped in a few rated R DVD's into the pile. I am pretty good at catching that stuff (years of practice from taking kids to the grocery), and was not above giving the ol' "so you want me to get fired over manga soft-porn and Sweeney Todd" stump speech when they continued to peck at me like a peep of biblio-manic chickens.

BTW - anyone know why the manga version of One Piece is OT rated? I used to watch that show with my son when he was 6! Not understanding...

While the students were shopping and ordering lattes and other sugary caffeinated concoctions, I asked the manager if I could play with a nook. He gave me a demo, which was pretty cool, but I just wanted to get my hands on it. Soon though, he was reluctantly pulled away by a customer who did not come in with a four figure PO, and while he was distracted, I finally got a few minutes with the nook, alone. But just a few minutes... The manager, who must have thought I wanted to buy them in bulk for the school, quickly found a lackey to gift wrap the customer's purchase. But really, I just wanted an eReader for myself. I wasn't even thinking for two seconds about getting one for the library, not yet.

I resisted the urge to make that impulse buy (although I have recently been reading reviews on the main eReaders, so it wouldn't have been totally impulsive...) and instead headed out with the RAC RATS (my readers advisory club) to the Chinese buffet.

Later that night I was telling my husband about the nook. He asked if I could wait until my birthday. I said "yes, of course'" and then proceeded to give him a hard time about the lack of a proper Mothers' Day gift last week. It was all in jest, really, I wasn't bitter...

This morning, I woke up to a husband bringing me coffee, and my two sons running in with a small B&N bag. It was my nook! "OMG, I am not going to get anything done today!" were my first words as I hugged and kissed everyone. I continued to gushed about my perfect gift, for over 10 minutes, becuase that is about how long it took me to figure out how to get the reader out of the packaging... Somewhere in that anti-climactic period (for the kids and husband, not me) the room cleared out and my coffee went cold. I guess my husband's trip to Menard's last night to get paint took him very close to the local B&N. Good man.

So, my nook is all charged up, linked to the home wireless network, and I am learning to become one with the navigation. My next two weeks will consist of playing around with the nook, and finishing up that end of school year boring library stuff. After this, I will put together a review of the nook for teens and YA professionals. I also need to post the following sign: WANTED: looking for library folks and teen readers who are also nook owners so we can loan books to each other!"

Yay for summer eReading!