A More Economical Way to Acquire and Recycle Books

I love books. I almost think that I’m a book-a-holic because I drool over and snap up books like some women do shoes. Like many, as the economy dives, I’ve had to cut back from my usual book buying haunts in search of cheaper and more economical resources.

In the beginning, I went cold turkey and started to get any book that I wanted from the library – test drive it to see if I really wanted it. Then I really started to pay attention to the library’s annual book sales and, of course, the books that they have for sale in the foyer every day. Can’t go wrong with $1.00 hard cover and $0.50 paperbacks! I’ve gotten many ‘steals’ from browsing this selection.

Unfortunately, the selection can be quite limiting. Thankfully, I stumbled upon a new and upcoming online bookswap service called BooksfreeSwap.com. It was created earlier this year as an easier way to swap books and audiobooks online. Swap as in, FREE!

Here is how it works: Create a free account and create your own wish list of items that you would like to receive. When BooksfreeSwap.com finds someone with the item that you want, you will be notified so you can initiate the swap. You simply pay postage and handling.

The site has a very active forum of passionate book lovers. I look forward to my first swap and while I haven’t figured out how to add friends yet, you can find me as InspiringBookWorms; being a ‘friend’ is not required to swap books.

Go to www.booksfreeswap.com to get started and I look forward to *seeing* you there!

~Shanna

Comments

I Spy a Freight Train

I Spy a Freight Train by Lucy Micklethwait (ages 4-8) While at the library my son spotted this gem and asked if we could bring home. He loves trains, so of course I said yes. We have a large freight train station in town, so it is rare that we not see a train. It's fun to see his excitement when he sees a train, but it hard to also watch him panic as the train keeps going and disappears. I called this a little gem because I didn't realize that the book about more than just freight trains. We got to spy on airplanes, row boats, horses, sleighs, a baby carriage and many more. Not to mention the other 'made up' things we spied while making a game of it. It was fun. Even more so, my children haven't heard the term baby carriage or sleigh, so that was fun to see what they thought was it. Here's another excerpt of the book. Oh, and while I am not much of an art know it all, in the back of the book are the credits for all of the pictures used. You will find the likes

Expectations

The Little Red Hen by John Escott (Ages 4-8) 2003 A little red hen lives on a farm with a few friends. One day she and her five chicks come upon some grains of wheat. The little red hen decides it would be nice to be able to bake these into a loaf of bread. Now, getting grains of wheat baked into a loaf of bread is lots of work. First you have to plant the seed, harvest the wheat, mill the wheat into flour and then bake the flour into the bread. Now each time a task was to be done, the little red hen asked for assistance from her friends, to each time they declined to help. So the little red hen did everything herself. Without giving away too much more, this is a wonderful story about hard work, the pay off and what you can expect from helping or not helping. Happy Reading!

Putting it in Perspective

Babar Goes to School by Laurent de Brunhoff (Ages 4-8) 2003 Being a King is hard work, but when children proclaim that it is difficult to be a child, Babar is baffled and decided to live a day in the life of a child, again , since he doesn't recall it being so difficult. Babar decided to go to school with the children one day and quickly learns that it can be difficult being a child. Especially learning that he doesn't quite recall how to do a math problem correctly or getting scolded for talking to his neighbor at circle time.... even though he was just trying to help. At the end of the day, Babar was quite tired and decided that it was much easier to be a grown up. Happy Reading!

Inspiring Bookworms

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