When the highlight of
one entire day was a contest on chat with a friend on who can name
the maximum characters in the Enchanted Wood series I realised that I really needed a break. Thankfully it was a Friday so I promised
myself to haunt the bookstores on Saturday for some new book. And
since it was Enchanted Wood that revived me on that dull Friday I thought best thing for me would be to go back to the books I loved as
a kid and even now.
And after a relatively long time I went
to the kids section of Crossword (Flipkart and my library membership having made trips to bookstores a rarity).
So there I am a 31 year old loafing
around in the children's section looking for a book that will catch
my fancy. I was hoping to pick the 3 Enchanted Wood books but to my
dismay I could not find them. And what made me even more upset was
there were barely any authors that I knew. Gone are the days when you
would see multiple racks of good old Enid Blyton. The books are
there, but limited and with brand new cover pages which just left me
shocked – it was like staring at a bosom buddy who has got plastic surgery
done. Where were the St. Clare's books with the beautiful O'Sullivan
twins on the cover? Or the Mallory Towers with the curly haired
twinkly eyed Darrel rivers on the cover?
I used to pride myself in knowing the
children's section well – and had even helped and pointed out books to
children and parents.
But things are changed now. I could not
find the Magic Faraway Tree but instead found something called the MagicTree House books! There are dozens of teenage vampire books. Then
there is a deluge of books by these new authors who are probably
churning books by the minute- Rick Riorden, Eoin Colfer and many many
more.
I suddenly felt lost in the land that I
thought I knew so well.
And I sat on the little stool staring
at all these fat colorful books wondering what happened. And
wondering what the children were reading. What was “in”. What was
good. All the books looked the same to me.
I watched kids picking up books with a
surety that I did not feel anymore, browsing through the shelves,
picking up 5th and 6th books of a set of 8 or 9
books.
And I wanted to ask them to tell me
what they were reading these days.
Oh and by the way if you are still
wondering about the result of the contest I had with my friend – I won.
