Monday, July 20, 2009

Books: My Not So Secret Obsession



I will be completely honest and admit that I am totally book crazy. I love books. This fact, in addition to being a homeschool mom means that it would be easy for books to overtake our home. To keep the addiction under control I purge our books at least twice a year. I take those to a used bookstore and get credit. I turn around and use that to get books for gifts or books we need for our history or language curriculum.

It may sound odd to buy used books as gifts, but our family does not mind at all. My niece loved the beautiful vintage horse book I bought her and my nephew was thrilled with his Jeff Gordon book that I found one day. I bought my friend Jamie a bag full of books from a used bookstore for her classroom as a graduation gift, and was able to buy more there than the couple of books I could have afforded new. In addition, our girls get books for their birthdays and Christmas. Every year for Christmas they get a classic hardback book. We have bought vintage copies of books in lovely condition from various sources. It may be trendy now to buy resale as well as being seen as a green shopping choice, but true book lovers know that there is nothing like having a hardback even if it had another love before you.

Another great source is library book shops and sales. One of our local libraries has a shop and I have found lots of things there. I try to look each time I go in. I know my areas of interest. Classics and children's for the girls and schooling, as well as Christian fiction for Nicole. Barry ahas been given gifts from their military section. I also check out their art section, as the large glossy books that go for a few dollars there are usually expensive at retail bookstores.

The books that are pictured in this post were all bought for around $11.00, not including trade-in credit, which amounted to about $9.00 I think. Five of them were required for history and language, two are for gifts, two are excellent composer biographies, three are supplemental history books, and one is a great living science book.

I do have checks in place to keep my book buying to a minimum. Any new release just "for fun" reading books we check out from the library. I use the First Baptist library, as well as Crawford County and the Fort Smith Public Library.

I have copied and pasted book lists from my history and literature curriculum from the publisher websites to my computer and searched for each book at all three libraries using their on-line card catalogs. I have printed the lists and keep them in my purse for quick reference. (I am going to post my annotated lists here eventually.) I usually try the author's name as well as the title, because subtitles and how the books have been entered into the library system can sometimes give false negative searches. I then go back to my saved lists and make a notation as to which library it is available at. If they are not available at any library locally I either buy or request by loan. Some books that take longer for us to work through I make a point to look for used or may even buy new. This also comes in handy for hard to find books; because I had my list I was able to recognize the title of an out-of-print book required for Bitsy's next year's lit curriculum and bought it for $1 at the FSPL bookstore. On e-bay the same book would have cost me a minimum of $5.

I also use the inter-library loan system to borrow books from other libraries through my local branch. FSPL just requires you to fill out a form. There is no charge for this service, but it does require advance planning on mom's part to utilize this during the school year without creating lulls. It is also important to move through inter-library loan books at a brisk pace, as some have a higher late fee and are not always renewable. Even with all these sources, there are times when I have just not been able to find or afford books for our history curriculum and I have simply found something I thought was similar enough and went with it instead.

Hope this is helpful as you plan for your school year.

Love,
Shawna

4 comments:

 Cha said...

Excellent advice there, Shawna!
Can't wait to see your book lists. I have some on my computer also.

Kim said...

Shawna, I'm loving your posts this week. I've been floundering this summer trying to decide what exactly we are doing and you are giving me lots of direction. I didn't know BF came out w/ the new Westward Exp. guide!! I'm excited!
How do you handle just plain reading w/ Bethany? I was still making mine read aloud to me every day last year. Not sure about this year. They hate to read on their own(kills me!).
I've never thought to check out the FSPL's store.
Keep the posts coming!!!

Shawna said...

I am going to post one of my book lists today Charlene, if I can get it to convert from one file type to another. That has made a huge difference in my frustration level when it comes to the used book stores.

Shawna said...

Kim, I am still giving thought to what we are doing this year in regards to who is reading what and outloud versus to themselves, but I will post about that soon. It has been on my mind also.