Books are Brilliant: Where to buy them.

We have built up quite a collection of books since Freddie was born and to add to these, we were lucky that I had a vast collection from my teacher training. 

Although I think 'Books are Brilliant', I also think they can be expensive. We have our favourite books, the ones that we repeat over again but then we also have ones that stay on the shelf forever more after one read.

Whilst Freddie is still young, I'm also worried about him ruining books with his over-enthusiasm and heavy hand, especially ones that were expensive. Try as I might to teach him to 'soft touch' (similar to petting the dog,  that doesn't work either) books and treat them with respect, it doesn't always work and we quite often end up with torn pages or chewed cardboard.

To combat this we now have two book collections; one is stored away for bedtime reading and the other is encouraged to engage with as he wishes and if that results in rips then so be it. 

To do this, I looked at ways in which we could find cheaper books which I didn't mind getting man-handled.

Supermarkets
Often supermarkets have books on offer. Tonight I bought Peppa Pig: My Granny from Sainsburys for £2.49 rather than the RRP of £4.99. They often have offers such as 2 for £7 on favourites such as Julia Donaldson.

EBay
You can normally pick up refurbished books from numerous sellers on the auction site for much cheaper than new. I bought Freddie a selection of Sam Lloyd books at Christmas for pounds and you couldn't even tell that they'd been used. Look for sellers with good feedback for peace of mind.

Charity Shops/Car Boots
Our local charity shop sells children's books for 25p each. Bargain! For that price, I really don't mind if Freddie rips them accidentally as they literally cost pennies. It also feels nice to have donated to a wonderful cause and done a good deed.
             
                


Gumtree/Freecycle/Facebook Selling Pages
Look out for people giving books away that they no longer use. I like to give them a quick disinfectant wipe and they are good as new. 

The Library
I have just joined the library with Freddie (look out for next weeks post) and was pleasantly suprised at how different it was to when I was a child. We got lots of books out on loan and even though we can't keep them, it was a perfect opportunity to find new authors that we may enjoy.