Book Sale Bounty

This week is the annual Penguin Putnam book sale here in my town. It means a whole warehouse filled with new books, sold at discount prices.

I went on Saturday, the first day, by myself. My hope was to find some Christmas presents, and I did find a few — including the watercolor and watercolor pencil art sets pictured here. Older Daughter really wants a bird encyclopedia, but the only bird book I found was Eyewitness Bird, a book already well-known from our library. For $2.00 it was worth buying our own copy — but it wasn’t quite the encyclopedia I was looking for.

This year I was struck by the avalanches of words. So many books! So many readers! To be honest, even for a reader it seemed almost oppressive in some way… So much to wade through in search of the words I may need at a given time.

I didn’t really want to go back. But both daughters had been looking forward to the book sale for months, and since I like that they long for books, and I want to encourage their love for reading, we set the limit at $25 braved the crowds again last night.

This time, we found a bird encyclopedia, as well as a field guide that expands on the Smithsonian guide Older Daughter has already pored over countless times. We also saw a Disney Princess Encyclopedia that Younger Daughter immediately went into raptures about. I am setting them aside to give them at Christmas — not my preferred style, which is to keep gifts secret until Christmas morning, but I think they will have enough to occupy themselves with until then.

Aside from the The Meaning of Marriage, these are the girls’ choices. Younger Daughter’s picks are a bit below her reading level at this point, but both girls read, as the conventional wisdom recommends, at several levels: a little higher, for challenge; a little lower, for confidence; and spot-on, for steady practice.

What always strikes me as remarkable is the girls’ propensity for reading nonfiction. That’s a taste I didn’t really acquire until much later. I always joke that I chose English as my major field because I could only read and absorb stories. Perhaps my daughters will have a wider world to choose from!

In any case, we always come home feeling far richer than can be measured by our actual expenditure.