I was sorting through my children’s books the other day trying to weed out the irrelevant, no longer loved, and damaged books when I realized, we own a lot of books. A lot. I spent a lot of time accumulating children’s books for P when she was little, most of which have been passed on to C. As I sorted through the books I noticed a large portion of them weren’t new when they entered our home, and most of the ones I was getting rid of were still in perfect condition. This spurred a mental list of the best way to accumulate a children’s library of books without breaking the bank.
1. Buy from the library.
Buying books from the library is one of the best kept secrets around. As libraries update their collections they will often sell outdated or duplicate books for a song. Find out when and where your local library sells books and stock up. A lot of libraries have a small section entirely devoted to selling old books, magazines, records, etc.
2. Shop garage sales.
I can’t tell you how many unread, immaculate books I’ve gotten from garage sales for pennies. And usually the more books you buy, the cheaper they get. Go later in the day and you just might score some books for free.
3. Buy Scholastic.
If you have school-age children ask a teacher for a Scholastic book form. Scholastic offers amazing book prices for educators who often pass on the deals to their students. If you don’t have school aged children find a friend or neighbor who does, and order from their children’s book forms. It’s a great way to acquire current titles and bestsellers for a fraction of the cost.
Go here to find dozens of recommended reading lists.
{image via Flickr}.
Allison
Hello there! I'm Allison Czarnecki, founder + editor of Petit Elefant, a blog all about style on a budget for every part of your life: style / home / travel / family. I do a lot of how-to beauty + style tutorials, travel posts, easy recipes, home remodel projects, and cool DIY crafts you totally want to try. I'm super happily married (to a hot Polish immigrant) and am the mother of two kids, a daughter and son, all of whom are featured here on the regular. We live in the country but we're a little bit rock + roll. Welcome!
This is so funny! Recently I went through the kids’ books and put all the ones I didn’t like into a giveaway pile. The ones that were too long (for me to read), boring, ugly covers (kidding. sort of), etc.
Sure enough. They spotted the pile and suddenly those are their “favorites”. So annoying.
Now I’m stuck reading ridiculous PowerPuff Girl books to my boys. (Where did those even come from???
I always try to weed through the books.
The girls always foil my attempts to pare down the collection. Grrr.
I *hate* all of the stupid books based on cartoon characters! They are so lame, the kids always want them, and we have TONS.
we have one of those huge IKEA bookshelves loaded with kids’ books… i’ve been thinking i should go through them to re-organize and get rid of… i’m a sucker for children’s literature!