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Thursday, July 23, 2009

Borders y juguetes / Borders and toys


ENGLISH VERSION BELOW
Esta familia es amante de la lectura, mi esposo y yo regularmente tenemos un libro a un lado y siempre procuramos que nuestros hijos estén rodeados de libros desde bebés. Como parte de nuestra rutina de fin de semana (además de mis rutinarias visitas a la biblioteca entre semana) es ir de visita a Borders, una librería que nos queda cerca, a mi hijo mayor le encanta ir y checar los libros y leer un poco, o un mucho (generalmente lo hacemos por una hora). Desafortunadamente el pasado fin de semana quedé muy decepcionada. Desde hace algún tiempo hemos notado algunos cambios que esta librería ha hecho en el área de niños. Desde hace algunos meses comenzaron a poner no sólo libros, sino juegos, juguetes didácticos, crayones, y productos similares, exactamente a la altura de los chiquitos, entonces, cada que íbamos pues mis hijos se distraían con ellos y aunque al final si leíamos algunos libros, más de una vez nos traían algun juego para verlo o querer abrirlo. Pero aahora si fue el acabose, toda el area infantil esta cambiada, y exactamente alrededor de las mesas y cojines donde puedes sentarte a leer sólo hay juegos y juguetes y monos de peluche y tarjetas, y libros con juegos, etc. Estuvimos ahí como por 30 minutos y mis hijos no tomaron ni leyeron un sólo libro en ¡25 minutos! se la pasaron trayéndonos juguetes y mas juguetes. Nuestro hijo mayor se la pasó pidiéndonos que le compraramos algo y mi chiquito de meses se la pasó señalándome los juguetes y pidiéndome a señas que los abriera y como no lo hice, pues tuvimos mas de un berrinche. Finalmente cuando mi esposo y yo estabamos completamente cansados de decir no, y preparándonos para irnos sugerimos leer un libro y nos sentamos a leerlo.

Es una pena que una librería decida poner tanto ímpetu en los juguetes y juegos. Yo no estoy diciendo que no me gusten o que sean malos, la mayoria son juegos didácticos muy bonitos, pero si yo necesito comprar un juguete pues ¡voy a la juguetería! y cuando voy a la juguetería ¡no llevo a mis hijos! porque ustedes bien saben que vas a comprar una cosa sales con algo para cada nino, ¿o no? Si a Borders le interesa introducir estos productos yo sugeriría que al menos usara areas separadas. Por nuestra parte se acabaron nuestras felices idas a Borders, ahora pensaremos dos, que digo dos, diez veces antes de aventurarnos a vivir una experiencia similar. Ahora checaremos a la competencia, ¡si señor!

ENGLISH VERSION
We all, in this family, love to read. My husband and I are always reading a book and we make our best effort to provide books and reading time for our children. That's why part of our weekend routine (beside my visits to the library during the week) is to go to Borders, it is close to our house and our children love to see all the new books and sit and read with us. A few months ago we started noticing that besides books, there were more toys, crayons, games and similar items within the children's reach, so once and a while one of my sons would bring us a toy or an activity to check it out; however, we always had enough time to read. Sadly I have to say that today I'm very disappointed with this store we love. The children's area has totally changed, all the book cases and displays around the little tables and cushy seats where we used to sit to enjoy the books were covered with games, toys, stuffed animals, and similar items. We spent 30 minutes there and for 25 minutes my children didn't look at a single book, they kept bringing us toys and games. My oldest son asked us to buy one toy 30 times! And my toddler kept asking me with his signs to open toys and because I didn't we had our share of tantrums. Finally when my husband and I were drained and getting ready to leave we read one book!

It's very disappointing to see how this Borders has changed its emphasis from books to toys. I'm not saying that they're bad toys, mostly they are arguably didactic and cute, but honestly, if I need a toy I will go to a toy store and if I go to a toy store, I prefer not to bring my kids! You know how that is, it takes double the time and you end up buying more that you want. I would like to suggest to Borders that if they want to have toys and games at least separate the two areas. For us, our happy trips to Borders with our children are over, now we will think twice, did I say twice? no ten times before we decide to risk having the same experience we had today. Maybe we will check the competition.

4 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  2. Woww... i did notice that the last time i was there. But my girls' ants in the pants work the same in a toystore than at the library!!!! So no difference for me.
    I guess the crisis makes the companies face the need to diversify, but i guess everything has a limit. And this is too much.

    Thanks for the comment and for reminding me that i am not emphasizing in reading enough like i used to... =(

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  3. When I was in nursing school, borders was my favorite place to go study.... for hours... sometime I would have to bring Jeremiah along.. I like to leave the house for studying so the dishes or laundry won't call me (: Anyways, I would sit Jeremiah with a book, but he would want my attention a lot, I think a little bit of hands on learning would of been good then.
    But books being replaced by toys is not good, they should at-least try and find a way to combine the two. A reading area filled with stuffed animals for example, you can have your kids read to the animals.
    Sad, something similar happened to Mcdonalds... they all used to have outside play areas, which is good when you are taking your kids to eat such fatty stuff, I recently read a lot of these would be replaced with video games in doors. Pathetic.... I don't take my son there anyway.

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  4. me gusto tu entrada de las famosas latinas que educan sus bebes bilingues jeje

    lluviia de besos!!

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