For the Love of Books

“The teacher who allows his scholars the freedom of the city of books is at liberty to be their guide, philosopher and friend: and is no longer the mere instrument of forcible intellectual feeding.”

Charlotte Mason, 'Mind to Mind: An Essay Towards A Philosophy Of Education'

Books! Living books are what we have been using the most in our home education. Paint comes as a close second but books are what really get us going. Charlotte Mason recognised the power of living books as vessels for learning. Living books are the kind that engage the reader, much like a favourite story would; written in such a way that draws the reader in, by an author that has first-hand experience of the subject or has a genuine passion for it. Since we began homeschooling more than three years ago, we have learned so much from living books and reading them out loud has become an essential part of our bedtime routine.

Many of the books on the Ambleside Online curriculum are out of print, public domain titles which generally mean they're free on-line. A number of the titles can be found on public domain websites such as https://archive.org/ and https://www.gutenberg.org/ where you can download the titles to your e-book reading devices, read them on-line, or print and bind them at home, which I have done a few times. I personally prefer reading from real books, the kind with pages that you can feel between your fingers and turn. Because of this reason, it is sometimes difficult to find the books that we need. And every year, as the new homeschool year approaches, I go on a treasure hunt, my favourite kind.

The first thing I do before I search on-line is clear my afternoon. When all the little chores are done, I would get a sheet of lined paper and write down all the books that we would need for the year. I would usually make myself a cup of tea before I begin my search. With my list by my side and a freshly sharpened pencil, I would begin crossing out the titles , with something akin to ecstasy, as I find each one and add them to my cart.

When we were living in Australia, the first place I would go to is https://www.livingbookpress.com/ . This small publishing house is based in New South Wales and is owned and operated by a homeschooling family. I love their publication for the quality, availability, price, and the excellent customer service. All their editions are complete and unabridged which is something I sometimes find difficult to determine with other publications. They also offer free shipping within Australia on orders of AUD$80 and above and free U.S.A. shipping on orders of USD$35 and up. They’re always adding new titles to their amazing list and I love that they have a very nice selection of poetry books. One of my favourite purchases from them is my hardcover set of Charlotte Mason’s books on education, a mother’s day gift.

The next place I go to is Amazon. Most of the time, I can find all the other titles from Amazon, and with Prime membership, shipping is almost always free – something I truly appreciated living in Australia, where shipping is sometimes even greater than the price of the items. I’ve found numerous amazing deals on Amazon especially on boxed set book series which my children and I tend to gravitate towards for our 'free reads' or leisure reading. We find it a bit difficult to finish a book knowing that the story ends when we turn the last page. With a good series, the story goes on for a few books more before it all ends, which usually reduces us to tears even more, as it is always so sad to say good-bye to characters we have journeyed with over several months and who we have gotten to know and love . Our favourites are The Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder (click here to buy The Little House books from Amazon), The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis (click here to buy 'The Chronicles of Narnia' from Amazon), The Dolittle books by Hugh Lofting (click here to buy 'Doctor Dolittle The Complete Collection' from Amazon).

The other place that offers millions and millions of books with free shipping worldwide is the Book Depository (https://www.bookdepository.com/). They have a wide selection of books and shipping is quick and secure. They carry a wide variety of publications and if you’re a collector, this place is a great place to start.

Aside from online bookshops, which mainly sell brand new books, I also am a member of several local used books buy-sell-swap communities on Facebook. I have had a few great vintage finds while scrolling through these groups and I’m happy to say I haven’t been scammed… yet.

One seller that I have bought numerous vintage books from is Gloucester Charities Book Sale, a second-hand book shop based in New South Wales. They’re on Facebook where they often advertise on their page. Their staff are incredibly helpful and accommodating. Once, I sent them a message asking about old hymnals and as an afterthought, I asked them about art books. They sent me photos of stacks upon stacks of the most beautiful and diverse selection and I ended up with three big parcels of hardcover art books as well as a massive 1963 edition of the Webster Dictionary. I also scored a beautiful collection of Franklin Library editions from them once and the books where in perfect condition and so carefully packed.

Another second-hand on-line bookshop I have sourced books from is https://browsebooks.com.au/ . They have a great selection of classics and literary fiction for AUD$6 per book, but they also sell very quickly so you have to be decisive when you go to browse. Shipping is free Australia-wide on orders of AUD$66 or more which is always a great reason to buy more.

Aside from the invaluable contribution these pre-loved (well-loved) books make in our learning, I feel a great amount of satisfaction knowing that I have given these books a new home and that they will continue to give knowledge and pleasure to my family instead of ending up as landfill.

Second-hand brick-and-mortar bookshops are also a great place for treasure hunting. In Karratha, where we used to live, there were only a couple of thrift shops where I would go and browse the shelves and it was very seldom that I would go home empty handed.

After moving to the Philippines, I am again on the hunt for new suppliers that offer living books we will be needing in our homeschooling. I recently made a purchase from https://thelearningbasket.com/. They have a good selection of books for different ages both in Tagalog and English and I bought some supplementary books about Filipino culture and history which are currently on rotation in our homeschool. It was my first on-line purchase in the Philippines and I was very satisfied when my parcel was hand-delivered to me only a few days after ordering.

After weeks of searching the nearby shopping malls for second-hand book shops, I finally found two at Ayala Malls. The first one is located on the second floor. Unfortunately, I was unable to note down the shop name in my excitement. We were in a bit of a hurry at the time and I only had a few minutes to do a quick scan. It was all I needed to find three vintage books that would do very well as bedtime read-alouds.

The next time we went to Ayala Malls, I found the second book shop, Biblio (https://biblio.ph/collections/all-books) , on the fourth floor. I found a stack of beautiful vintage harcovers and went home with a beautiful cloth-bound copy of Willa Cather's 'My Antonia', which I'm currently reading for the first time and a hardcover illustrated edition of 'The Best of James Herriot'. I can’t wait to go back for a closer look.

Now that we have a pretty good stack of books at hand (we brought our library with us from Australia but the books are still in storage), we can again sit back and enjoy the stories until we again run out and have to go on another delightful treasure hunt -- the kind I love best.