Some "thrifty" book finds ...

As most of you know, I love thrift stores and especially love great book finds. I live in northwest Montana and we don't have a lot of book stores in our area. Our Borders closed down, so all we have a a few indie stores scattered around, along with a couple that sell used books. As much as I love supporting other writers, I do scour the thrift stores and used book stores quite often. Sometimes I get really lucky and come home with some great finds. The books pictured above were ones I picked out for Nathan. The Wimpy Kid Movie Diary and Big Nate are both hardcovers, which I got at the Salvation Army for a quarter each. They sell kid's books anywhere from a dime to a quarter. It's unbelievable. Goodwill is about $1.99 per book.

These cat books pictured above were ones Neil picked out. There is one dinosaur book tossed in there as well. Neil adores cats, so he's always on the look out for cat books. Cat Power! is a hardcover and came with a CD, and again, it only cost a quarter. The others were only a dime.

I got these books to add to our home library. I realized I didn't have a copy of The Wizard of Oz, other than picture books, so that was a great find. I've also been wanting to read more of Jean Craighead George's books, especially after learning she passed away a few weeks ago. The boys and I are huge fans of her and loved her My Side of the Mountain series. I was just talking about Julie of the Wolves on Facebook on Tuesday. I found it for a dime the very next day. Yeah ... a dime! Wow. The Charlie Brown books are both first edition copies, and from what I can tell, first printing. Actually, I already have It Was A Short Summer, Charlie Brown. I bought it anyway because I wanted to compare books and see which one was in better condition. It's from 1970 and Charlie Brown's All-Stars is from 1966. I love finding Charlie Brown books. Smoky Night caught my eye with the Caldecott Award sticker. I don't find many newer hardcover picture books at thrift stores, especially Caldecott winners. Not only that, but this one was illustrated by one of my friends on Facebook. I'll be blogging about that book later on.

The books in the next picture are all Little Golden Books, which I collect. One of those is a Happy Day Book (upper left), which are Bible-based stories. I collect those also and keep them with my LGBs.

And finally, I found some more of the Great Illustrated Classics books. My mother-in-law used to buy these for the girls when they were little, so we have a good sized collection. They're kind of hard to find where I live, so I constantly scour used book stores and thrift stores for them. I was pleased to find these. My boys love these stories and we read them all the time during the school year. Often when we're done with the book, we'll watch a movie if there was one. They're great books that introduce kids to classic stories. I know my girls have gone on to read the originals after being introduced by these abridged versions. 

So anyway, there you have it -- all my recent book finds!