Thursday, June 20, 2024

A Quick Visit to Barnes & Noble

On June 12, I was near a Barnes & Noble store and had 30 minutes to kill.  I went inside to check the children's book department.

The Hardy Boys section is rather small.  (Remember to click on photos in order to see them better.)


It could be that there was a recent run on the Hardy Boys series, since some empty space is present on both sides of the two books.  My fear is that the demand for the Hardy Boys books is so low that Barnes & Noble only stocks a couple of books.

Nancy Drew is a little better, but the selection isn't very good.



Here is a neat metal boxed set of Baby-Sitters Club books.


I had to check on the Keeper of the Lost Cities books.  Quite a few are in stock.



I also photographed a couple of books with appealing covers and titles.  Sometime soon I plan to see if they appeal to me. 



The books are The Secret Library by Kekla Magoon and The Mystery of Black Hollow Lane by Julia Nobel.  Kekla Magoon ghostwrote the second Nancy Drew Diaries book, Strangers on a Train.

Rick Riordan's books remain quite popular.




Here's a modern Choose Your Own Adventure book.


It's good to still see a few traces of vintage series books in the stores, but it's sad that the selection is so poor.  Modern children are into different kinds of books than the ones that we loved as children.

1 comment:

Dan said...

I live in a very populated area, and there are almost no Hardy Boys books at the local indigo is almost empty. Most of the books there are Blue Spines, and maybe one copy of the last book in the series (#25). I've been going to that Indigo for years, and even during the awful "trilogy" era of the UBs, there has never been this few Hardy Boys books there before. Having read two adventures books and skimmed through a third, I can't say I'm surprised.

The Nancy Drew section isn't doing much better. Although, much to my shock, a new Diaries book was just announced. And it's another sabotage mystery. Of course it is.

The Adventures and Diaries series were announced really soon after the UBs ended, and I believe the same is true with when the UBs were announced. The fact that S and S have not announced another series despite the Adventures being cancelled is worrying to say the least.