An unhappy Christmas tale

I’m afraid I have share a distinctly unhappy Christmas story. West Australian bookseller Eric Ladhams had a shocking end to his 2008 after vandals broke into his store, Boab Books. The shop lost around $50,000 worth of stock when local children with whom Ladhams had clashed earlier in the week pulled the books off the shelves and poured milkshake syrup over them, before destroying the store’s computers, cool room and cafe. ‘Nothing was stolen,’ Ladhams told the Weekly Book Newsletter, ‘they just came in purely to smash and destroy.’ ‘Even if I could have afforded new stock, it would have taken three or four weeks to get there, so our Christmas trade was basically nil’. Two 14-year-olds have been charged, while four nine-year-olds have received juvenile cautions. Boab Books is now for sale.