My Book Ownership Manifesto

In this busy season of back to back to back homeschool conventions and book sales, I am running about trying my hardest to make sure all my t’s are crossed and my i’s are dotted.  As I prepare for this weekend’s conference in Kelowna, B.C (which I am SOOO excited for) and next weekend’s conference in Hamilton, Ontario I am envisioning all those wonderful books careening here and there.  Life of Fred books are currently racing up an Ontario highway towards my home from the far off land of California, other books have spanned the distance from Tennessee to British Columbia and I am hoping to wake tomorrow morning to a box from Nevada.  All these and my most treasured shipment will be one that I personally escort home from a print shop not too far from my own front door – more amazing Maple Tree publications lovingly printed and prepared practically in our own backyard.

Then, after a night like tonight, where a shipment gets stopped at the border and it would seem that all hope is lost for getting the books to the folks that ask me to bring them here, I stop and wonder, “Why am I doing this?”  A friend asks, “So, are you going to do that again?  Or will you stop ordering books from the States?”  Nope; I’m a bibliophile.  I love books too much to stop buying them.  I love these books too much.  Tonight was a challenge, a lesson to be learned.  Red tape.  Red tape can’t take away my love for books.

So, you know my weakness: books.  I’ll also tell you another secret: my hubby told me that the only way he would allow me to keep buying books was if I started to get rid of some.  Could I part with some?  Give away some?  Throw them out?  Sell them?  And so, God opened the door for me to be involved with Maple Tree Publications.  Now, my husband blesses me in all the book buying that I do because he knows that I am buying all these sweet treats for my friends – usually.  There are still a few treasured tomes that are allowed past the bookstore shelves and onto our personal library shelves.  But I do have to be careful with what I buy as I am apt to find more gems than I can store. 

So how do you deal with this problem of so many good reads, so little space?  I know that many of my home schooling friends are bibliophiles like me.  So let me share with you the Dean family’s book ownership manifesto:

First of all, when I realize that every book, even good books, if they aren’t e-reads take up space.  And if they are going to take up space, they are going to displace something else that could take up that space.  I often have to ask myself, have I got balance in my home or is this little world that I live in overly stuffed with the written word.  Do I have room (literally and figuratively) for other great things like personal space, the great outdoors, toys and games for the kids and space to love and entertain people.  And those areas that I do devote to my book collection, am I prepared to dust and tidy and maintain those areas ongoingly?  Just like budgeting time or money, I need to wisely budget my limited space and bridle my love of books accordingly. 

Now that I have carved out that little bit of space, I need to remember that it isn’t going to get any bigger without an expensive move or renovation or a reshuffling once again of home space priorities.  So it is at this point that I need to set some high standards for which precious tomes can stay and which must go.  Here are four questions that we ask when assessing whether a book should be invited to live out its life in our home:

·         Is it something that the library won’t store for me?  We have had to say goodbye to some wonderful literary works, classics and other beautiful stories that we were confident would be found at our local library.  As taxpayers, we can be content to store some of our favourite books in that municipal storage facility that we regularly pay fees to (by way of those ample property taxes): the library.  After all, ask yourself, even though Treasure Island is a really riveting story, how often will I be reading it?  It will likely gather dust for years before I reread it or someone else in the house wants or needs to read it. 

The library, however, might not carry a set of Christian novels that are popular at church but not in the general community.  Don’t stop at just looking to the library as a storehouse for good books.  Perhaps you will find these great books somewhere else and still don’t need to keep your own copy.  Many thousands of great books are available free online as e-texts or as audio books.  While we’ve been using e-resources for more than 10 years now, sites like Project Gutenberg (www.gutenberg.org) and Libriviox (www.librivox.org) are now practically household names in light of the common use of e-readers and mp3 players.   

 

Places to “Store” Good Books *The library *www.gutenburg.org – free online e-books in the public domain *www.librivox.org – free online audiobooks in the public domain *www.mainlesson.com – The Baldwin Project provides free electronic copies of classic children’s literature *The church library *Your friends’ houses *Family’s houses *Book exchanges like www.bookmooch.com *The second hand store (if you found it there then send it back as soon as you are done and bless both the second hand store and the next reader)

 

·         Do I need to use it constantly?  There are a few reasons that you might want to keep a book that would otherwise be found at the library.  Take, for example, books that you will be reading or using over a long period of time or which you will use for several years with different students in your home school.  Text books and reference books fall into this category as well.  You can’t be running to the library every time that you need an atlas or dictionary and hard copies can’t always be replaced by the computer and good websites. 

·         Is it hard to find in print?  This is the case with much good Christian literature – like good Christian fiction or classic works of theology and thought – as well as reference books: concordances and Bible dictionaries.  There are also books that are beautiful or useful or out of print: perhaps your Grandmother’s Bible that she wrote in.

·         Is it such a good book that I want to keep it in my lending library?  There are some books that are just so influential or striking that you really should share them with others.  These books are worth keeping just to reread and to lend out to others.  Beware of falling in love with too many good reads though.  I have to constantly look back and evaluate whether I still want to keep one spectacular book or another for my lending library.  Sometimes the best thing to do is to bless a friend with the book permanently so that they can be in charge of lending it out from here on.  Then they can also be the ones who are trying to remember to whom the book was last leant out.

Well, Friends, as you prepare to go to a conference and do some shopping or as you search around online looking for the best deals, I want you to know that while there are literally thousands of books that I would like to share with you, I have chosen, for now, only to carry books that fit the above criteria.  If there is something that you need that I don’t carry then, by all means, ask me and I will see if I can get it in, but for now – with a limit to the size of my bookstore shelves and to the depths of my bookstore pockets, I hope that I can help to meet your needs with my little collection and as economically as possible. 

Looking forward to meeting you “Under the Maple Tree” either virtually or at a book sale or conference over the next couple of months.  Until then, I hope that you too can find a quiet place for a bit of reading time just as I hope to in my little retreat “Under the Maple Tree”.

Peace,

Cori

www.mapletreepublications.ca


- with excepts from Working Together by Cori Dean copyright 2011.