By Harpspeed
When I was ten or eleven years old I had a doctor’s appointment at Children’s Hospital in Boston and while waiting in the big lobby inside the main entrance to the building, I spied several of my Little Golden Books on a shelf. I knew they were mine because when I opened their covers, I found my name in my mother’s beautiful looping script with the date of receipt and the occasion for the gift. I remember looking around at the other children and seeing what I believed to be my copy of Goldilocks in the hands of a little girl and feeling a little awed of my mother and happy at the same time to see something that I had loved bring joy to someone else.
Why not give such a book that no longer has a shelf life in your home to someone who will appreciate it? The life of a book will increase if every reader considers the next reader. Early spring, I sort through my own books that are ready for their second or third or fourth life and keep them ready-to-go at a moment’s notice.
Photo credit: henry…/Flickr (CC-by-nc-nd)
Here are some general places in frequent need:
- Shelters
- Hospitals
- Schools and child care facilities
- Library book sales
- Senior centers
- Armed services (soldiers home & abroad)
- Prisons
- Charities—big and small—that will use or re-sell or re-distribute books abroad to those who have lost their books or have none.
Places to sell them:
- Your local used bookstore (if you can find one!)
- Over the Internet to specific buyers looking for your copy in places like Amazon and Barnes & Noble used book markets, eBay, and Craigslist.