Once a year, the PTC at my kids’ school organises a Book Swap and it is absolutely my favourite thing ever to volunteer to help with. There must be many ways of doing something similar. This one has the huge benefit of being absolutely cashless, and having (virtually) no book go to waste. (I love secondhand books, but there are limitations; you cannot hand on a sticker book with all the stickers already stuck.)
Its beauty is in its simplicity: one book = one paper token = one book.
Our Book Swap runs over a week, using a section of the school library (we are incredibly fortunate to have this amazing resource and our wonderful librarians!). For the first couple of days, it’s drop off only, and the kids and parents bring in bags of books for the volunteers to sort and receive their tokens in return. Soon after, we open to ‘shopping’; the teachers bring their classes down, kids pop in before lessons, and it opens after school for parents to come and ‘shop’ too. There’s usually a slight shortage for the oldest kids in the school – people haven’t outgrown those yet – and a plethora of books that are slightly too young. But the kids enjoy picking out a book for a younger sibling, and teachers from local day cares and nursery schools come in to choose some for their classes. (At the end, any left are donated.) Fortunately there are also plenty of books that are just right.
I find both sorting books traded in and helping with ‘shopping’ very rewarding. There’s something fundamentally satisfying about classifying the books – picture books, early readers, chapter books, books for more experienced readers, multi-language books, animals, science, history, biography – trying to create some order as a random assortment arrives. I particularly enjoy sorting the chapter books alphabetically by author, standing them up on the tables with metal book ends tucked in, seeing the collections grow. And then watching them whiz off the tables again as the kids come shopping and find another in a favourite series, or something new to try. It’s quite an insight into what they’re excited to read.
Obviously some people bring in lots from home, and some bring in none or next to none. I’ve found the kids happy to share their tokens with friends, and the teachers have some spares for anyone who might otherwise miss out. By keeping money firmly out of the process, the kids can indulge their generosity. As a teenager, I loved to spend an afternoon unearthing treasures in a secondhand bookshop, unexpectedly finding something precious (another Georgette Heyer!). I always hope Book Swap gives the kids something of that thrill. And I get to borrow the dream of having a bookshop – even if only for a few hours.
P.S. What I’m reading. I finished Murderland, and am continuing my interest in the brain with Your Brain on Art: How the Arts Transform Us by Susan Magsamen and Ivy Ross (Random House, 2023).
In other news, the children’s book, Crossings, that Sunil and I wrote together has been reviewed in the Times of India’s Sunday supplement today: A sea of thirty million souls. It is available to order through Tara Books, but unfortunately, it’s still shipping from India, so P&P is high. I wrote about it on this blog here.
And, to my amazement, I went through to the second round of the NYC Midnight Short Story Challenge, which has been super fun, so fingers crossed for the results in June.
Books for Our Children 