Books For Birdies
At my mid-year report I mentioned that I had read 99 books, of which were 92 kids books I read to Birdie. That number has only gone up, albeit at a slower rate just because I've read most of the kids books available in the house.
Those books came from a few different sources:
- Ones we already owned. Mostly Dr. Seuss.
- Gifts from friends. This was by far the largest category, encompassing among many other titles all 25 Elephant and Piggie books.
- Free books that M signed Birdie up to get from two different groups.
M really loves Dolly Parton, and once it became clear that Dolly Parton's Imagination Library was available around here, it was a no-brainer that M would sign us up. From there, M found the PJ Library, which is modeled on the Imagination Library but focusing on the Jewish community. Each sends Birdie a free book every month.
Unsurprisingly given their much larger audience, the Imagination Library books are generally a little more basic. You can tell that they have really applied some effort to cutting costs because instead of being in envelopes or boxes they come shrinkwrapped, which works so well that I'm surprised Amazon hasn't figured out how to do that. The PJ Library titles tend to be more elaborate, and more importantly each one so far has come with a dust cover that ties that particular book to a specific Jewish concept for home education. For example, a book version of "What a Wonderful World" talked about the importance of gratitude in Judiasm. It is very well done.
A small part of me feels slightly guilty that we're getting free books from either group, since we're manifestly capable of buying them ourselves. I suspect we'll be "paying it forward" by donating back to PJ Library or to a local literary group like Cleveland Kids’ Book Bank, who we have donated to previously at an event in 2017 where we won a boat trip in a raffle.
Those books came from a few different sources:
- Ones we already owned. Mostly Dr. Seuss.
- Gifts from friends. This was by far the largest category, encompassing among many other titles all 25 Elephant and Piggie books.
- Free books that M signed Birdie up to get from two different groups.
M really loves Dolly Parton, and once it became clear that Dolly Parton's Imagination Library was available around here, it was a no-brainer that M would sign us up. From there, M found the PJ Library, which is modeled on the Imagination Library but focusing on the Jewish community. Each sends Birdie a free book every month.
Unsurprisingly given their much larger audience, the Imagination Library books are generally a little more basic. You can tell that they have really applied some effort to cutting costs because instead of being in envelopes or boxes they come shrinkwrapped, which works so well that I'm surprised Amazon hasn't figured out how to do that. The PJ Library titles tend to be more elaborate, and more importantly each one so far has come with a dust cover that ties that particular book to a specific Jewish concept for home education. For example, a book version of "What a Wonderful World" talked about the importance of gratitude in Judiasm. It is very well done.
A small part of me feels slightly guilty that we're getting free books from either group, since we're manifestly capable of buying them ourselves. I suspect we'll be "paying it forward" by donating back to PJ Library or to a local literary group like Cleveland Kids’ Book Bank, who we have donated to previously at an event in 2017 where we won a boat trip in a raffle.