YA materials in a bookstore

For the course materials I voyaged to a chapters in the city, offering me the perfect opportunity to look at an area of the bookstore that I usually avoid at home. In this chapters, the teen section was at the back of the store, consisting of two back to back shelves off of the main isle. Further into the store was the children’s section, as I find it usual to have it near by, be it for families not wanting to spread out to much or just a general consensuses that as the age groups are close so should be the books. Although I have never been in this particular chapters, I found the area easily even though the signage in the store was lacking.

The are its self was quiet small, and as expected there was a decent sized twilight merchandize set up displayed, as well as a table of the books in front of the area. As well, there was another vampire series displayed on the shelving to try and sway teens in the twilight fandom in. There were no other shoppers in the area while I was searching for the books, not surprising as there seemed to be few/no teens in the store, most people were in their 20’s or older as well as a few younger children.

As mentioned, I usually avoid the teen area in other bookstores, and it was ever I place I really looked to books as a teen. Many of the books I wanted were given to me, either from a list I had come up with by looking online, or by family browsing and choosing. As well, I tended to read above my age group so many of the books offered in the area did not appeal to me.

I also realized that the teen and humour and sports sections were close together, something very similar to the chapters/indigo I frequent at home, giving options to the age group about the genre of fiction they are looking at. It could very well be a way for teens to be looking at novels but easily turn around and look at comics if friends came around. In thinking about the indigo around home, I can think of many changes ever time, including a large security standing/walking around in the evening possibly to deter loitering, as there was a movie theatre across the hall (as the indigo was in a mall) and the indigo was a popular place to meet and hang out before the movie. This security guard disappeared once the invasion of teens had left for their movies, leaving the rest of the shoppers to browse in peace as the teens tended to be quite loud.

Overall my visit was a success as I found the materials, and the strong presence of retail merchandise was something very noticeable, but if it draws teens or young adults into the section then it is worth it.