From the previous post someone asked me what all that cost. Most people who know me, know that I don’t pay full price for anything. So here is my PSA on how to get cheap books.
1. Scholastic - The 928 books (which Braeden stacked in piles of tens to count) were mostly from my teaching days. Take advantage of Scholastic book orders, GREAT PRICES! They always have a few 99 cent selections. I am such a dork that I get excited when I see the Scholastic book order form come home.
2. ebay – look for lots of books. Board books, we all know brand new these things go for $5-6 a piece. I found a reading recovery teacher who was retiring and got I over 50 board books for $20-30. Try to get them to ship media mail…it might take a bit longer, but well worth the price.
Here are some that are currently going on….
http://shop.ebay.com/?_from=R40&_trksid=m38.l1313&_nkw=board+books%2C+lot&_sacat=See-All-Categories
3. Library book sales – check out your local library. Also, just go to borrow them, there are so many great programs happening at the local library. Even with the 1000+ children’s books in the house, I take Braeden to the library every Wednesday to check out a few more.
4. Garage Sales - I also hit a jackpot this summer and TONS of books for 10 cents each.
5. In Michigan we have a program called SKIP (Successful Kids Involved Parents). It is for kids age birth-kg and they have fun activities, playgroup, and a home visit component. When I tell friends in other states what they have a playgroup they tell me they would have to pay $$$ for a program like that. We get if for free, you don’t have to qualify or anything, everyone is welcome with kids in that age range. They even have a lending library there too.
Part of the home visit component is the teacher brings a board book every time she visits. I have told her to stop bringing them and to save them for the kids who don’t have the extensive amount of books that we have accumulated, but she keeps bringing them.
If you have a program like this it would be under the Early Childhood Education area of your State Education Department.
6. Dollar stores – okay, so you won’t get the same quality books, I’m talking about the authors, story, etc here, but when they are little they don’t really realize who the author is and if it is a good storyline. Mine love the ABC and counting books we have picked up there.
7. Also if you are looking for something in particular there is a website called
http://www.paperbackswap.com/index.php that allows you to trade books, all you pay is the shipping. You list several of your books and once someone wants your book you pay the shipping. Then you have credit for a book and you go to the book you want and request it and they pay to ship it to you. My mom gets many new release best sellers this way….something you might normal pay $10 for costs you just the postage which again, use media mail and you are talking $1-2. So recycle those books!
Okay….so go get some books! They are great stocking stuffers too!
3 comments:
Scholastic Book Orders are the BEST! I love the deals I get through them and probably 85% of the books I own came from them at great prices!
I come from a family of book hoarders too.
Can I put in a plug for Scholastic?
When you buy them from the teacher, she earns bonus points to purchase books and supplies for the classroom.
I had so many bonus points last month that I was able to purchase an entire set of classroom novels at no cost to parents or the school.
(And the prices are great.)
Oh yeah! When I was a teacher it was great! The first order of the year always gave you like 20X the points and free little books for the class. That's why I make sure to order a nice order in Sept, I remember those days.
A few years back I remembered I had tons of bonus points (after teacher) and ordered tons of books for Braeden.
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