BookBairn's Book Swap

I imagine some of you are wondering by now how we manage to fit all those books in our house! I count myself pretty lucky that we have plenty of space for storing BookBairn's books: she has her favourites shelf which we have mentioned before (here), and she has her bookshelves in her bedroom (here) and her book cubby in the living room (here). I also have a stash of books hidden in my study/library/office but these are all winter/Christmas books or books from school as well as a box of Dr Seuss and Roald Dahl's hidden in the attic - how Daddy BookBairn puts up with all this I'll never know. He's a patient man!

But since starting this blog we have amassed so many more books having been sent some from publishers and authors as well as additional purchases that I just can't resist having seen them shared on other blogs and children's book guru's social media feeds. So I decided to host a little book swap with lots of BookBairn's little reading pals.

The idea was that I would put out lots of our unwanted* books and our guests would bring some that they were happy to swap (although I did request that only good-condition books were brought along to the swap as no-one really wants an old chewed up edition of the Very Hungry Caterpillar, etc). And many of the parents seemed more than happy to part with a few books that they themselves were quite happy to see the back of (click here to see one I would love to part with but BookBairn would be very upset so I've just hidden it for now!).

I put all the books out on the windowsill and after some chatting from the mummies and playing from the bairns, our book swap officially opened. It was elbows at the ready to get in for first dibs: the children behaved very well, it was the mums who were keen to get the best selections. I was super-impressed that all of the children parted quite happily with their books in exchange for something that was new to them. And I got lots of lovely messages later in the day saying how much the children had enjoyed their new books and that they had read all of them already.


We then had coffee, tea and cake for the grown ups and lots of healthy snacks for the children! After everyone had left, I ended up with a large pile of books, I think about the same amount that I started off with but maybe even slightly more and I have divided these up into two large piles to donate to BookBairn's nursery and the school that I was working at prior to taking a career-break. I dropped off the nursery pile (made up primarily of the board books and the simpler picture books) this morning: there were so many I wheeled them in the empty pram before collecting BookBairn and the ladies were delighted! I'm sure they will be put through their paces at nursery (this makes me think of Toy Story 3 - I wonder if the children are more like the caterpillar room or the butterfly room?). And I intend on dropping off the rest to my school after the school holidays.

I love this photo. It looks like this little bookbairn has found a prize gem of a book!

All in all I am quite pleased. My house is tided of excess books (and by this I mean that there is now space on the bookshelves for new books!). Lots of BookBairn's friends have new books to enjoy. I had a lovely morning with friends. And the nursery/school children have new books added to their libraries. A fantastic result. I hope we will be able to host another book swap later in the year, I am hatching plans to do one around Christmas time that might involve wrapping and re-gifting the books but that's a long way off yet!
If, like us, you have lots of extra books gathering dust on your bookshelves, I highly recommend organising a book swap. The children don't notice or bother that the books aren't brand new and it doesn't cost a penny! Go for it!




* I use this term loosely as books are never truly unwanted in our house it's just that I wanted to get rid of some that BookBairn had never really taken to or needs time to grow into or books that we have duplicates of. In other words, books which could be re-homed to a more appreciative reader.