Everyone I know grew up reading books before bed. When my brother and I were young, my parents read to us all the time. As we got older my mom would read longer novels to us, a few pages of a chapter each night. I don’t think we ever made it through The Yearling, but I know we were in middle school when I became a voracious reader and read on my own each night, and my brother became more interested in manuals (an engineer from the start!)
I always knew that I’d read to my child someday, but I never gave much thought to what I’d read or when I’d start. I was given a few books at my baby shower before baby Stroller was born: The Circus Ship, Make Way for Ducklings, Blueberries for Sal, and many more. I couldn’t wait to start reading to baby Stroller!
When baby Stroller arrived, it quickly became very apparent that there was no way we’d be doing a bedtime book. First of all, there was no such thing as bedtime for the first two weeks; it was just one sleep/wake/eat cycle after another. But even when he started a clear nighttime routine, it was jammed-packed with bath, nursing and a top-me-off bottle and left little room for story time.
So instead of bedtime stories, I started to read to baby Stroller before his morning nap when there were no other distractions; just the two of us rocking and reading in his nursery. He usually falls asleep within the first four pages, so the actual words in the books are for my amusement right now. I love reading Baby Stroller’s dozen or so books that we were given as gifts, but I wanted a few more to choose from. So I started to build a little library, on a budget!
baby Stroller reads with his Mamie
- The easiest way to find favorite books is to poll your mom and dad friends – what do their children love? More importantly, what do they love to read?
- Think back to when you were a kid, what was your favorite book?
- Go online and look for reviews of the most popular children’s books
- Visit your local library and look at the featured books in the children’s area
Once you have a list of six or seven books, go to your local library and actually read the books. Do you enjoy reading them? Do you think you’ll enjoy reading them 1000 times? If so, then add them to your to-buy list.
Buy Books on a Budget
Many Goodwills and other donation-based organizations list their goods for sale on eBay at really reasonable prices. eBay has a book condition rating system so you’ll know the condition of the book before it shows up at your door. Similarly, Amazon allows individuals to sell used books in their marketplace. When you search for a book you’ll often see a link that says “available new & used.” Oftentimes you’ll pay pennies for a book, plus a few dollars for shipping.
Expanding Your Collection
Once you find your favorite books from your to-buy list from your original hunt, start searching for more books by the same author. Many children’s book authors have published several books and if you like one, chances are you’ll like them all!
Also search for themes or places you like. Baby Stroller has a lot of books about Maine
Make the Collection Extra Special
Put a special touch on your little library by having customized bookplates made with your child’s name on them. Etsy is a great place to find bookplates to fit any nursery’s theme or child’s interest. Sweet Treats for Baby made our customized bee bookplates for our baby bee!
Over the past four months baby Stroller’s little library has grown quite a bit. While I look forward to taking him to the library each week when he gets a little older, I’m loving choosing a book to read from our special little library each morning.
What are your favorite children’s books?
clementine / 878 posts
The Poky Little Puppy is an all-time favorite. I was also gifted the entire collection of Winnie the Pooh. I remember liking the Berenstein Bears. And when I got older, I could read an entire Nancy Drew mystery in a few hours.
persimmon / 1453 posts
Another tip for cheap books: libraries frequently have book sales every few months. Many of the books are in like-new condition because they weren’t checked out enough (if at all) and are being removed from circulation. At other times the library was given a book donation which was a double of a book they already had, or wasn’t in nice enough condition to be placed in circulation.
At my local library, it costs between 25 cents and a dollar to buy their old books (depending on the age group, whether it’s hardback or paperback, illustrated, a reference, etc.). Cheaper than Amazon!
Also, if you want to give your kids unique books to read every week, nothing is cheaper or more versatile than an actual library card.
blogger / wonderful cherry / 21628 posts
Great post! I love to read and want to pass that on to my children one day. I’ve already started buying kids books in thrift stores.
pomegranate / 3225 posts
I love, love, love this idea! Thrift stores and used book stores are some of my favorites.
hostess / wonderful persimmon / 25556 posts
My favorite kids books were The Wide Mouth Frog, The Very Hungry Caterpillar and anything Dr Seuss. We are building a library of beach-related books, as well since that’s where both of our parents live and it’s one of my favorite places.
Sales, hand-me downs, gifts and thrift stores – that’s how we plan on bulking up our child’s library. We were so lucky to be gifted a whole bunch of books at our baby shower. I had mentioned to a few people that we really want to start her off reading and they made sure we got some good books!
I tried the library sale in our town but found that by the third day of the sale (the day we went) most of the good books had been picked over. Most of the books we found and wanted had scribbles in them or were torn or really dirty. That was so disappointing! We will perservere, though and we will make sure we look elsewhere for kids books.
blogger / pomelo / 5361 posts
Reading to our little ones is one of the things I most look forward to! My parents already gave us a set of the books that were our FAVORITE when we were little bitty.
GOLD / wonderful grape / 20289 posts
More budget book ideas- the dollar section in target and at the dollar store. They have board books which is nice because LO eats them all up anyway, so it’s nice that I don’t have to worry about her ruining an expensive book.
blogger / pear / 1964 posts
Great ideas! I totally started buying picture books well before I was pregnant.
The book plates ideas is awesome – that’d be a terrific shower gift! When you’re looking for books, think about different formats, too. Board books are an essential part of a baby library – they’re more resilient and easier for little hands to turn the page. If you’re looking for great books, you might also want to check out the list of Caldecott Medal winners — it’s the highest honor a picture book can win in the US. ALA provides an exhaustive list here: http://www.ala.org/alsc/awardsgrants/bookmedia/caldecottmedal/caldecotthonors/caldecottmedal
cherry / 155 posts
I love our baby’s growing library! Whenever anyone asks what baby would like as a gift, we say books (much more enjoyable and useful than stuffed animals). My new favorite are Mo Willems books, so cute and funny. I love listening to my husband read to the baby, he always says the title and author and I think its the cutest thing.
persimmon / 1135 posts
The book club that my mom belonged to while I was growing up gave me an awesome selection of books as a baby gift. It is so awesome! I got a wide variety of the member’s favorites from when they had young kids. I love that they started off DS with a little library.