It has been
sitting in the bargains basket for months – perfect in every way except for the
markdown sticker. In John Burningham’s Shopping Basket (Red Fox), Stephen’s
trip to the grocer becomes an encounter with marauding animals. Using his wits,
he manages to outsmart them all and arrives home in time for tea. Why doesn’t someone buy it? Is shopping no longer an adventure? Doesn’t anyone go shopping in person anymore?
Stories about
shopping were a very important part of my children’s lives but I’ve struggled
to find newer titles for our grandson. I can find:
Eric Hill’s Spot
goes shopping (Warne) where Spot helps his mother at the supermarket.
Tracey Corderoy
& Joe Berger Spells-A-Popping Granny’s Shopping (Nosy Crow). Pandora likes life to be normal but Granny
likes to magic things along, so their trip to the supermarket is anything but
ordinary.
Anna Dewdney
Llama Llama Shopping Drama (Hachette). Llama Llama isn’t happy that Mama wants to do a
little shopping so soon everything is flying out of the shopping cart.
If you know
of other shopping titles suitable for a book loving two year old, please let me
know.
Amazon.com
(my comments – not endorsed by CBCA)
Often over
the last four and a half years, I’ve had to defend myself against complaints of
“exploitation of book buyers” and I’ve also learned that some people do not
know the vastness of Amazon’s reach.
Recently, I’ve been bombarded by news articles featuring Amazon. This is
an attempt to list some dot points in answer to those complaints
Some will
know that the company owns ABE Books www.abebooks.com but did you know that Book Depository www.bookdepository.com and Good Reads www.goodreads.com are also owned by them? www.salon.com/2013/10/23/how_amazon_and_goodreads_could_lose_their_best_readers/
Book
Depository (and other online) purchases exploit Australia’s lack of First Class
mail; under international postal union obligations Australia Post is forced to
deliver overseas parcels less than 400gm at their own cost.
Recent issues
of Publishers’ Weekly have been full of the as yet unresolved dispute between
Amazon and Hachette. The story appears
to be that in an attempt to negotiate a bigger share of e-book royalties,
Amazon instituted shipping delays of three to five weeks for the books of many
Hachette authors, including J. K. Rowling, James Patterson and Douglas Preston. There have been suggestions that if a
publisher did not give Amazon what it wanted, some of its books might disappear
from the site. ”It was the equivalent of
a physical store putting you back by the discounted gardening equipment, where
no one will ever find you.”
The German
Publishers’ Association filed a complaint with German Federal Antitrust
Authority because it believes Amazon’s dominance in the market detracts from
consumer choice as it eventually leads to fewer outlets selling books.
French
lawmakers adopted a bill aimed at preventing Amazon and other online giants
from offering free deliveries of discounted books, in a bid to support the
country's small bookshops. nytimes.com/2014/07/10/opinion/pamela-druckerman-the-french-do-buy-books-real-books.html
Amazon hit
back by charging customers just one centime (1.4
cents) for books dispatched to their homes.
www.thelocal.fr/page/view/tag/Amazon
And finally,
distinguished children’s author Allan Ahlberg declined the inaugural Booktrust
Best Book Awards‘ Lifetime Achievement Award, because it is sponsored by
Amazon.
Nella
Gosh I hope shopping is still a fun time for kids and families. Have no grand children but hope to enjoy this experience one day with future ones...online shopping is convenient but not as much fun
ReplyDeleteI had no idea that Amazon owns ABE Books, Book Depository and Good Reads. Appalling! Thanks for letting me know.
ReplyDeleteJulie Hunt