The Boys' school has a used book fair on at the moment. The basic premise is that the children comb through the shelves to find books they don't want anymore, and take them into school where they exchange them for 'book bucks', which they can then swap for - you guessed it - more books.
So - an opportunity to rid ourselves of books that are too young a reader-age, and to get new books more appropriate to the Boys into the bargain? Fantastic.
Obviously, we forgot all about it.
This necessitated a last minute rifle through the shelves and some hard decisions about which titles we loved too much to give away, even if they were way too young for the Boys these days. At the final count we managed a total of 20 books to swap - many of which, it has to be said, had been acquired at previous book fairs and which I was only too happy to see go (Transformers or Pokemon, anyone?).
The Boys were delighted; this gave each of them a total of 10 book bucks to spend. The only problem was that, having left it to the last minute, a lot of the best books had already gone and so the selection to choose from was somewhat thinner than they might have liked. This meant that when he had chosen the books he wanted, Boy #2 still had one book buck left over. He decided that rather than saving it for the next fair, he would - dear heart - spend it on me.
This is why, when I collected him from school the day before yesterday, he made me a gift of this book.
I like to think of it as evidence of his lofty ambition for me.
So - an opportunity to rid ourselves of books that are too young a reader-age, and to get new books more appropriate to the Boys into the bargain? Fantastic.
Obviously, we forgot all about it.
This necessitated a last minute rifle through the shelves and some hard decisions about which titles we loved too much to give away, even if they were way too young for the Boys these days. At the final count we managed a total of 20 books to swap - many of which, it has to be said, had been acquired at previous book fairs and which I was only too happy to see go (Transformers or Pokemon, anyone?).
The Boys were delighted; this gave each of them a total of 10 book bucks to spend. The only problem was that, having left it to the last minute, a lot of the best books had already gone and so the selection to choose from was somewhat thinner than they might have liked. This meant that when he had chosen the books he wanted, Boy #2 still had one book buck left over. He decided that rather than saving it for the next fair, he would - dear heart - spend it on me.
This is why, when I collected him from school the day before yesterday, he made me a gift of this book.
I like to think of it as evidence of his lofty ambition for me.
