Book Budget

Books are expensive. A cheap book from a big box store might cost $5. A decent book from a bookstore by an author you’ve heard of will cost more. A top-notch book from an independent children’s store that’s genuinely educational and not the cardboard equivalent of a LeapFrog toy will require a credit card.

It doesn’t help that tomes have a limited bookshelf life in our house. Abbie has destroyed a 529 account’s worth of quality picture books. She bends pages in new directions, intentionally removes liftable flaps, and demonstrates a creativity when finding ways to shove books into her book bin that I wish she’d show with those Little People cluttering the living room. The boys don’t help either, with their chewing on, drooling on, and eventually crawling on liquid-weakened pages.

I try to cut costs by buying used books, but that has its limitations. I usually visit garage sales to find used books, which works great in the summer, but not so much in mid-January when every Iowan is holed up indoors instead of trying to squeeze a few quarters from those old books gathering dust in the basement. When I find used books, they don’t always last very long in our house. My kids can destroy a new book easily enough without help from the pre-creased and torn pages in some used books.

I was delighted to find a new source for cheap books at the dollar store. We don’t usually visit dollar stores because, well, because we’re snobs. I gladly visit seedy discount stores for off-brand food that will only be consumed by myself and my loved ones. Buying things like laundry detergent at a dollar store is crossing the line since using weird detergent could ruin clothes that I paid good money for.

We were out of town a few days ago in small town Iowa and needed a few things. This being small town Iowa, our best shopping option was the local dollar store. We found a couple luxuries like some clearanced holiday merchandise.* Then I found the children’s aisle, passed over a few cheap yet surprisingly overpriced toys, and found the books.

The store had eight different books in two different series. One series appears to be a slightly Americanized version of a series from a foreign country, most likely China judging from the panda that appears on every page for no good reason. The other series is the “First” series, a group of books using photographs and words to illustrate concepts like letters and numbers. Their covers tout the series as “highly successful,” though they don’t say what they’re successful at. Probably at getting published while using stock photographs.

I threw all eight books in the cart. It was the best $8 I spent at the store, much better than the suspiciously cheap Christmas cards. We’ve had the books home for about a week now, and every one is still intact. For now.

* There are few things cheaper than clearanced dollar store merchandise.