Recently, I came across this quote by Barbara Tuchman: “Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill. They are engines of change, windows on the world, lighthouses erected in the sea of time.” Of course, we love books in our homeschool.
Yesterday, I took the kids to the Sevierville Library to return some books. They had a used book sale going on, so we looked around. How can you go wrong when these books go for $0.50 or $0.25? I knew they did this twice a year or so, but had never taken the time to check it out. Wow! I have been missing out all these years.
We came back with an armful of books, many of them classics like “Heidi” and “Lassie” and “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.” I spent less than $10.
I like the fact that they are used. They remind me of the books we used to check out as children in Romania – brown pages, corners turned, the name of a previous owner on the cover, stamps from various different libraries it used to belong to. These pages, worn out by many eager fingers, have offered adventures beyond the reach of many.
Many of the books I found are in like new condition, too. I found geography books on France and Sweden, a biography of Isadora Duncan written for children, classics by Mark Twain and Charlotte Bronte and anything in between.
The sale goes on for a few more days. The next sale starts on September 15. You want to be there, if you live in the area and like books. You never know what treasures you may find for your homeschool.