The Alabama Chronicles - Part 2 - Books-A-Million

I always find it absorbing watching to see where people head to in a book store.  It might be a young girl hovering in the sports section and extracting a chunky volume on Olympic swimming, or a builder, straight from a hard day's labour, carefully wiping his grubby hands on his trousers before browsing through Nigella Lawson's latest cookbook.  Or perhaps it might be an elderly gentleman with his grandson, selecting travel guides at random and nudging each other every so often to share a particularly great find.  Book shops can tell you a lot about people; those keen to learn who purchase 'How To' books, those hypnotised by the glamorous celebrity universe, content to flick through picture books of Rob-Pattz and K-Stew, and those simply eager for a good read, who browse through the bestsellers, going from blurb to blurb in search of that warm fuzzy feeling you get when you stumble on a great book.

The kids section of Books-A-Million

I remember as a child asking my mother to leave me in the local bookstores while she went and did the weekly food shop.  I would identify the most direct route to the children's section at the back of 'Barnes & Nobles' and 'Books-A-Million', where there was a reading corner decked out with tiny chairs and bean bags.  From time to time I might recognize a fellow reader and wave shyly across the floor, or sometimes I'd know exactly which book I wanted to read (having steadily been ploughing my way through it for the past three weeks) and to my dismay find it in the podgy fingers of some little rascal.  I'd put on my best scowl and wonder how best to get back my prized possession.  This normally involved offering another in exchange, advertising it as a more exciting read; yet this rarely came to any avail and some serious sulking often transpired as a result.

Me with my Betsy Bunny in the Amish outfit I bought her

There was another part of the bookstore that I was drawn to, like a bear to honey, and that was the section on the Native American Indians.  After almost every holiday we embarked on during our years in the States, I would come away with a new found fascination.  I was so desperate at one point to become an Indian that I demanded to be called by an Indian name, chose my ideal tribe and instructed my mother in how to fashion me a Pocahontus style outfit for Halloween.  My hair also lent itself magically to two long dark braids so it seemed my longed after fate would perhaps come to pass after all.  Then we visited Amish Country and my loyalties to the Native Americans were tossed aside.  I ignored the relentless claims by my parents that I couldn't just become Amish and I eagerly dreamt of the 'Simple Life' with blue starched dresses, black aprons and dolls made from corn.  My favourite book of that era was 'Rosanna of the Amish', which retold the story of a young girl adopted as a child by this distinctive group of people.  It was remarkably similar to my favourite book from the previous year, 'The White Indian Boy', which recounted the tale of how a white skinned boy became adopted by a great Comanche leader...

Perhaps you can notice a theme...