Going to a Book Sale? Don't Forget to Take Your Children with You

Trekking for Books with the Next Generation

I buy and sell used books for a living. When my wife and I go trekking for books, particularly to sales, we take the next generation with us. While my wife and I and our twelve-year-old son fan out in different directions to pick out books, our fourteen-year-old looks after our three-year-old daughter. Since the first few minutes of these sales are critical as far as getting the best books, we do much better when the whole family is involved.

Coming home from one of these sales with a load of books is like coming home from grandma's house after Christmas. When we get home, we open the boxes of "presents," and sort the books by category. Every so often one of us holds up an especially great find for the rest of us to see.

Occasionally, however, there's a piece of coal in the stocking, a book picked up by mistake. Sometimes, it may be a beautiful book with a illustration missing that we hadn't noticed in the rush of the sale. Last Fall, following one of the best book sales in the Mohawk Valley, I was stuck with not just one, but with six books that I didn't think I could ever sell.

The six books were part of a religious, juvenile series called Jungle Doctor by Paul White. They were about a missionary doctor in Africa. Although some had interesting covers, they looked outdated and unsalable.

"Who bought these?" I asked.

My twelve-year-old son, David, confessed to buying them. In fact, he was quite proud of his purchase. Ordinarily, I don't have to worry about the books David picks out. Although young, he is well read. he also knows how to appraise a book's condition, to check whether or not it's a book club edition, and, in most instances, he can identify whether or not it's a first edition.

However, as an even better read adult, with an M.A. in English and a better knowledge of the used book trade, I figured I still knew more than he did and that he had made a mistake.

"I don't think we should have bought these books," I remonstrated. "They'll never sell." I was so sure they wouldn't sell that when I put them on the shelf, I priced them at exactly what I paid for them. I figured that eventually I would have to lower the price and sell them at a loss.