Sunday, December 12, 2010

The Hunger Games and the teddy bear

Our kids' section contains a larger-than-toddler-life teddy bear, which for some of our youngest customers is the main attraction. It gets hugged, sat upon, rolled upon, and generally abused with the best of intentions. But this morning, it sat neatly on the rocking chair. (Thanks, closing staff!)

Enter a boy somewhere between ten and thirteen. He grabbed The Hunger Games off the shelf, looked around for a seat, and sat down on our ursine friend. "You can move the bear if you want," I told him. He shook his head and opened the book to the middle--where he'd left off last time, I guess--and continued reading until the end. He stayed with the book long enough that I'm convinced he wasn't just checking it out.

That right there, that's early adolescence. It's a time when you can feel compelled to finish a book about teens forced by the government to rip each other's throats out, while simultaneously feeling compelled to sit on a teddy bear.

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