A mother found herself celebrated on social media after surprising her son with a two-minute shopping spree at Barnes and Noble for his birthday.
In a viral TikTok video, Jaci Moore took her son, Bentley, to one of the bookstore chain's stores in Illinois on his 12th birthday. She set a timer and gave him a store bag to fill. with as many books as I could carry.
“Be nice to books,” she warned him in the video, to which he responded with a smile: “This is your idea.”
She laughed, “Yeah, and apparently I made a bad decision.”
He watched as his son ran around the store, quickly removing books from the shelves and ended up acquiring a haul of about 47 books. To her surprise, the total came to $270. She joked about it in the caption, writing, “I tried to surprise him for his 12th birthday and it immediately backfired. “I underestimated him.”
The sweet surprise has attracted more than 2.9 million views on TikTok, with many viewers gushing about how touching it was to have Bentley's little bookworm dreams come true.
“The fact that he is so excited about books, at his age, is such a good thing!!” wrote one user. “It's totally worth the small fortune.”
“His happy face fills my heart,” added one viewer, while another noted, “If my son loves books so much, it's worth the money spent.”
“As a teacher, this makes me smile,” someone else commented. “I wish more parents would encourage their children to read.”
A bookstore clerk took note of Bentley's loot, including books from the Who headquarters either Who What where Series, which chronicles important events and historical figures, as well as current public figures such as Alex Trebek and Zendaya. They wrote: “As a Barnes and Noble employee, it warms my heart that you have taken all the Who What where books.”
Moore explained to Business Insider that Bentley already had 81 of the Who What where series, and thanks to her birthday run, she now has over 128 books in her collection. The young man told the media that he selected those books because he is fascinated by “history, facts, geography, people, and they are really fun and interesting to read.”
When asked about the positive comments flooding her comments section, Moore said she was glad to brighten someone's day. “The idea that other people can smile because of him is a great feeling,” she said. “He's delighted that people like it too.”
He noted that if it weren't for Bentley's younger sister feeling sick that day, they would have gone to the aquarium to celebrate her birthday and never would have done an impromptu book tour. She came up with the idea after seeing some videos of adult couples doing the same thing.
