What are my kids reading? Part II

A few weeks ago, I wrote about how when I was a kid there really wasn't much of a "young adult" book market. (See link here.)  There were a few books aimed at teenagers, but pretty much books were divided into kids books and regular books.  I lamented my kids reading so much YA, and wished they read regular books.

Last week, we were in San Francisco for Spring Break.  We rented an apartment on Telegraph Hill.  The neighborhood was lovely, as was the apartment.  Before we left, the Boy said he didn't want to be a tourist or do tourist-y things.  He wanted to hang out in coffee shops and bookstores and read.  Which is fine.  One night after dinner at a Chinese restaurant, we found a bookshop called City Lights Books, one of these old independent bookstores with a well curated collection.   We walked in a wandered around the first floor.  They had a large selection of poetry, architecture books and fiction on the first floor.  They were poking around, and I started to panic.  I thought this place looked cool, and I wanted to check it out.  I feared my kids might look around for three minutes, decide there was nothing interesting there, and want to leave.  I ducked down into the lower level, and read the sign of what was there.  The list had two dozen categories, including economics, history, philosophy, and political science.  I skimmed all of that, and stopped when I saw "Youth."

I hurried back to my kids and said, "There is a young adult section downstairs..."

As soon as those words spilled out of my mouth, I immediately regretted it.

The kids immediately dropped what they were looking and and went downstairs, as if I were admonishing them to another floor.  That was far from my intention.

I should have let them roam around on the main floor, looking at titles they might not otherwise find interesting.  I was ready to kick myself. I should have held that in my back pocket until they were antsy and bored, just the granola bars I kept in my purse when they were younger.  They were saved for an emergency, and I had used them before my kids had even fussed.  This was a rookie mistake, and I am not a rookie.

Claire-Adele was disappointed that they mostly carried series.  She ended up picking a YA book about an Asian American girl and her challenges.  (She reads stories Asian girls the way I read about the Holocaust at her age.  If there is a book on the topic, she reads it.)  The Boy picked up Soccernomics by Simon Kuper.

I could say I was one out of two, but that wouldn't be fair.  Both got a book they wanted to read, and that was the point.

I didn't get a picture of the bookstore, but this is close by.