The 2011 Medill cherubs definitely braved the heat wave as they trekked throughout Evanston in search of stories and restaurants. But the young journalists discovered a cold sanctuary on the corner of Church and Sherman: Barnes & Noble.

“Almost every time I was downtown, I found myself saying, ‘It’s so hot, let’s just stop in Barnes & Noble,’” Emma Grubman of Florida said. “I think I lost count how many times I went there this summer.”

It is alarming when Florida natives cannot handle the heat. Rachel Lowe of Pennsylvania also said she went to Barnes & Noble because of the high temperatures.

“It has been really hot here, so it’s nice to go in an air-conditioned place when I’m downtown,” Lowe said. “I would recommend cherubs go there next year because it’s free and you can just sit in there and read.”

The store sits right off the downtown’s main street.

“It’s in the epicenter of Evanston,” Grubman said.

It’s because of the bookstore’s conspicuous location that cherubs unexpectedly found themselves gravitating to it.

“One day, there was an Urban Outfitters sale,” Grubman said. “The walk there was strenuous and it was very warm outside. We saw Barnes & Noble, and I was so excited just to stop in the store.”

Whenever there was a choice between locations to chill out, the bookstore won.

The bookstore’s other amenities also made it a comfortable refuge.

“While we mainly went because it was hot out, we found it nice to not be sitting in front of the computers anymore on Facebook,” Haley Hinkle of Indiana said. “We also really wanted to read magazines because we kept talking about magazine journalism in class. It’s nice because this is something that actually has to do with journalism.”