What My Kids Are Reading (And What It's Costing Me) - Jennie

This weekend, Powell’s Books in Portland proved that reading is alive and well, not to mention the survival of the independent bookstore itself.

Of course, I had lofty expectations of scanning the various floors for Steinbeck steals, and maybe deals on Coelho or Pollan.

But you know where I ended up. Yep. The children’s section. I never even left the first floor.

Sure, I did a fair amount of research there, trying to solve my usual perplexities: “How did (insert author) begin/end (insert title)?” “How many I’s are acceptable on one page?” And “What are the sellers recommending?”

Mostly, though, as The Husband browsed “Americana” above us, I helped our three kids find, decide on, and buy some entertainment for the 4 ½ hour drive home.

Dominic, 10, had to settle. He’s been waiting forever for the release of Mouse, Number Six in Jeff Stone’s Five Ancestors Series, and for Brisingr, Number Three in Christoper Paolini’s Inheritance Cycle. Since nothing could substitute for either of these, Dominic huffed off with The Complete Guide to Pokemon under his arm. It was $24.99, and he read it in the car in seven seconds flat.

Stephan Dubner and Steven Levitt, co-authors of Freakonomics, would break this down as a disproportionate time-money ratio. But nothing about Dominic comes cheap. Especially entertainment.

On the other hand, Daney, 9, will read anything. The problem is that she’s already blown through every young work of fiction printed in English—twice. In Powell’s, she was deliberate, scrutinizing covers and studying backs, before confidently slapping The Lost Files of Nancy Drew on the counter. Knowing that wouldn’t last her long, I grabbed Patricia MacLachlan’s Baby off the shelf, a bargain at $1.95 that might buy an hour.

And speaking of babies, Rees, 7, staked out a towering heap: a Speed Racer board book, a flimsy Lego paperback that came with trading cards, a SkippyJohn Jones pop-up, and a Star Wars sticker book. I coaxed him into choosing the latter; $12.99 for 30 miles of silence was worth it. If I were the Freakonomics guys, I’d factor a mom’s sanity into that ratio-thing.

We could have spent $40 on a book-on-tape that the kids have probably already borrowed a hundred times from the library. Instead, I plucked a Mad-Libs off the rack. From Salem to Eugene, that $2.48 kept them from asking, “How much longer?”

Trip book total: $62.40. About a tank of gas, had the kids not been crammed in the back of a Prius.

I figure we broke even.