How Many Readers do you purchase for each child?

We have the same problem with our library…and my DC seem to be drawn to the twaddle-ish books.  We currently have 3 bookshelves full of readers…and a whole bookcase of picture books.  I try to buy as much as I can at thrift stores, but the selection there is about the same as the library.  I’ve had to order many of the Christian books from Amazon or RR, which does get expensive!  I try to place an order every month or two so we’re not spending much each paycheck.  Amazon has the 4-for-3 promotion and free shipping at $24, so that helps.   Some books I’ve found on RR much cheaper, so I always compare their prices.  

I have not idea what a “reasonable” amount would be…I’m pretty sure we’ll surpass that at some point.  As long as I can figure out how to fit more bookcases in the house.    I see it as an investment.  We spend $30-40 on fast food (for example), so I don’t think it’s unreasonable to spend that same amount on books!

I really don’t like to use the library because I am horrible at returning books!  I once had a reciept for late fees that was literlly as tall as me!  The librarians were teasing me, and for a minute the girl thought the printer had malfunctioned! lol  Anyway, I totally agree with Holly.  I have all the books I want saved on amazon and ebay, and each month I purchase a few.  I rarely pay more than a couple of dollars for a book.  A more recent discovery of mine is Goodwill!  Paperbacks are 8/$1 and hardcovers are 3/$1!  I spent $10 on books in two trips and it required us to buy a new book shelf…can’t beat that!  And all of them were straight off the SCM list, too-no twaddle! I’ve also been finding a lot of good ones at estate sales lately.  They’re usually about $1/each, but I ask if they’ll take .50 cents each, and they almost always say yes.

One of my favorite quotes:

When I have a little money, I buy books. If there is any left over, I buy food and clothes. Erasmus

I’m over 15,000 and not close to stopping yet.

I guess what I wonder is what you mean by readers? Are you talking books for children who are still not proficient readers, meaning somewhere before they could tackle a chapter book like Charlotte’s Web? Or do you simply mean books for each child to read for ‘literature’ on their own no matter their age?

My answer is different for each. For those still working on becoming proficient in the reading department we start with Now I’m Reading sets by Nora Gaydos. Then we move them up to the hardbound readers from All About Spelling/All About Reading (which I’ve aquired over the years when they first came out at a discount). I also have a few of the Pathway Readers which are hardbound and come in every reading level from very beginning to much older. I have a few elementary level ones but have not felt the need to get a full set. Once my kids can read a chapter book easily they don’t need these.

Now, my oldest only had the Now I’m Reading books, then we just worked slowly on slightly harder picture books until she was ready for chapter books around 6.5-7.

My 7 and 8 year olds just this week jumped from readers to trying a Magic Tree House chapter book on their own and are doing well. Not the highest quality of literature, but they fit the easy chapter book level and the kids love the history slant.

My 5 year old son taught himself to read fluently at age 3. He can read from the scriptures with few stumbles, and tackles chapter books at will. Had very little to do with me and my teaching!

So my recommendation for the learning to read fluent stage is to invest in a series or two of good readers like Now I’m Reading, All About Reading readers, and Pathway Readers. Each child can use these when they are ready and when they hit fluency they jump to good chapter books.

For all those fluently reading children we invest in a few new-to-us books per child per year (I’ve got baby #8 coming this summer). In this way we’ve build a home library the younger children benefit from, so I am beginning to find I don’t have any I really want to buy for the younger end of chapter books. We have a lot of quality picture books too. My kids think it is a treat to go to Half Price Books to each choose a title (which we do about twice a year).

And we’re best friends with the library and interlibrary loan. We go every Saturday just about and return books as needed (our library has a drive thru to pick up and return books even, so we can do it on the way to errands!).

Good luck! We also love Kindles and have a large library on there, from free through Project Gutenberg to Yesterday’s Classics and some of the Heritage History sets. What we have on one Kindle can be put on up to 6 devices.

Better World Books usually has the books I am looking for and they are pretty inexpensive. Free shipping, too! They’re used, but they end up getting a lot more used in my house so I’m fine with that 🙂

Since you mentioned Christain companies… here’s another place to look for books. Some of the ladies who run private libaries have book sales! I think it’s awfully nice to be able to support them and get some books at the same time. Living Books Library updates their book sale page the first monday of the month. And Robin at Children’s Legacy Library did a book sale for her library recently, I couldn’t get the link to work on the website. Anna also has a used bookshop. I thought there also were a couple of moms here that had a bookshop that if you started your Amazon sale through their shop they recieved a percentage of the sale. Not sure exactly how that works, I haven’t done it myself. Anyway, few more places to look for books. (P.S. We have a separate budget catagory for “books” aside from what we spend on homeschooling. Smile.)

Thank you, morgrace! I just listed about 25 more books on my sale page tonight, if you want to take a look:

http://wheremytreasureis.wordpress.com/treasures-bookshop/

Robin, I have a goal of opening a library of living books once my children are grown and our library has expanded, so I enjoy reading about the ways in which you run yours. I’d love for all the books that I’ve collected over the years to be used by many more children (and my grandchildren, too, Lord-willing!)

~Anna