The precipitous demise of Borders is a cautionary tale that no matter how good things are, everything can turn to crap pretty quickly.
Walking past a Border location last weekend with a huge "GOING OUT OF BUSINESS" sign, though, I was struck by my immediate reaction: "Great time to go stock up on kids books."
I have a hard time envisioning the market for children's books going away anytime soon.
For anyone's who's read a bedtime story to a kid, can you really(?!) imagine scrolling through Good Night Moon on your iPad?
I'm also struck by the irony of the storyline in that (crap) movie with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan, "You've Got Mail." If you'll recall, Meg Ryan's Shop Around the Corner, a purveyor of kids' books, was unceremoniously put out of business by a Borders-esque chain. The irony? Kids bookstores may actually, in the long run, survive a lot longer than the Borders of the world.
And a disclaimer: I remember this movie and this store ONLY because the actual store location was literally across the street from our family's place for 20+ years on West 69th between Columbus and Broadway on the Upper West Side.
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