Treasure hunting for books

I spend a lot of time hunting for and evaluating resources to use for our homeschooling. The curriculum that I have chosen uses many older books that have been reprinted or the text is available online. You can purchase most of these books on Amazon for ten to fifteen dollars. I started ordering a book here and there for when the Nuthatch starts grade one. Then I read a suggestion that you can often find these books at used bookstores.

I have long had very romantic notions of used bookstores. I didn't shop in them much, mostly because I always used the library or I never knew what I was looking for. When I was young I dreamed that I would meet my future husband in a bookstore as we perused the shelves side by side, looking for the same classic novel. It would be a rainy fall evening and we would go to a little coffeeshop afterwards and talk until they closed.

In reality, I met my future husband in a student house at university, where I kept flooding his basement room with the washing machine. He is a computer guy, and the water would pool underneath his computer workstation where the web of cables, cords and wires connected all of his devices together. It was true love.

Anyways, back to the books. I finally had a good reason to search the used bookstores, so at Christmas time we headed downtown together with my list. My very patient husband waited, bored to tears, while I looked through their entire children's section (it is still true love, 15 years later). I found a few good items, especially a lovely hardcover copy of 'Make Way for Ducklings' by Robert McCloskey. The books were still $10 a book, although now they were hardcovers instead of paperbacks.

My searching was yielding good results, however my greatest discovery came quite by surprise to me. I had been decluttering my house of the toys and outgrown clothes. I boxed and bagged the stuff and drove to Goodwill to drop it off. On a whim, I decided to go inside the store and look around.

I suspect that the store I go to is not like most of the other Goodwill stores. They have all of the stuff in large shallow blue bins that are on wheels. There are bins of clothes, bins of toys, bins of household items and bins of...books! I started rummaging around to see what I could find.

I'm not sure what I picked up that day, but I knew I was on to a good thing. On my next trip to drop off stuff I went in again, and this time found a very nice hardcover copy of 'Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare'. I was so excited, what were the chances that I would find this book here? I snatched it up quickly, certain there were others on the prowl for the jewel I had just found. I took it up to the cashier, not sure what this find would cost me. Fifty cents! I could not believe it. I had found a goldmine.

Now I was addicted. I was also spring cleaning and conveniently finding more items to go to Goodwill so I could look for more books. On my next trip I found the complete set of Winston Churchill's 'A History of the English Speaking Peoples' and a 6 volume set of his memoirs of WWII (for myself, not for the Nuthatch). There was also another copy of 'Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare' which I picked up for a friend. My bill came to five dollars.

I wondered who was dropping off these great books at Goodwill. I would read the names written on the inside covers and picture an older gentleman or lady who had passed away, and their children had taken all of their beloved books to Goodwill, not appreciating what they were worth. Not from a monetary perspective, but from the richness of the language and ideas that were inside, the words of good writers.

They are in good hands now, on the shelves of our small but steadily growing library. I will need more space for these books soon. Perhaps I should clean out my closet and make a trip to Goodwill.