to be seriously saddened by the fact that a few of my local charity shops no longer accept or stock childrens books because they don't sell?

[Crablass]

I went on a book buying mission to get my Nephew some books. He came on holiday to our house for a week and developed a serious and very pleasing reading bug. He's normally addicted to the computer.

In order to encourage him I wanted to send him a book parcel but had trouble finding good stuff for him because four out of the six charity shops in my local area no longer stocked kids books because

"no one buys them".

AIBU to be really saddened by this?

You do tend to see a lot of very odd, very old children's books in charity shops though and I'd be suprised if they ever sold them. The '100 animal stories for girls' kind of things probably bought by a great aunt in 1992.

Gosh, that is weird. I just bought 4 from a charity shop today. Perhaps it's due to things like Amazon?

Agree with majority on here. I just bought DS1 nearly all the Mr Men books for a few quid. I wouldn't buy new books - get all our books from charity shops/jumble sales/freecycle.

I used to buy my sons books new from Amazon/Book People/Red House/ etc when they were on offer, or second hand from Ebay etc. Now he's nearly four we get them from the library and it's such a great service for kids in our area that I can't see us actually buying many books in future, unless he's desperate for a particular book.

In our area we can have up to 15 books at a time on each library card. There are no late fees for childrens books & you can renew as often as you like (in theory keeping them indefinitely, or until the child goes off them) They can be renewed online too, so no carting them all back to the library. You can order any books you want( also online) & within a day or two they'll get them from another library for you via the inter-library service & give you a ring to say they're in...all free.

At the moment we have 40 books on loan between us & since starting to visit the library DS interest in books has just rocketed. He loves choosing what he's going to have. He adores it when he comes home from nursery to find I've been to the library and got him a load of 'new' books. We read about 4 or 5 books a day.
With a free service like this it's hardly worth buying books, either new or second-hand.

I have stack loads of books in our house. I tendedto buy them at work as book people come round alot, and second hand shop.
OP what age is your nephew? would happily send you some books for ffp.

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Charity shop books vary tremendously in price. I now choose my shop far more carefully.

I buy most of mine off ebay or carb oots - usually cheaper than the prices they charge in charity shops round here - even with postage taken into account on Ebay!

It´s very sad and YANBU.
But I agree it might be the prices.
Plus, depending on age, children probably want to be reading the latest "trend"!

I agree with what's been said re books at car boot sales, I find there's a better selection and much cheaper than charity shops.

I've had problems getting charity shops to accept books as a donation, as they believe books generally (not just kids books) don't sell.

fwiw I don't think it's a matter of people not wanting books per se, it's just that charity shops tend to be full of the type of books people don't want iyswim. If books 'don't sell', how come Oxfam set up their specialist book depts and are doing so well that other book shops are complaining about their business suffering?

And re the free books outside not being taken, I think there's a suspicion of free stuff, a perception that it's either too good to be true or too scuzzy to want! Personally I love 'help yourself' boxes.

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Some charity shops are so overpriced though. They are good local resource and of course an important fundraiser, but I do wonder if the people that work in them have ever actually been to a 'proper' shop, as they seem to vastly overestimate the actual value of their goods (an example recently was a bottle of M&S body lotion, sells for £1 in M&S and usually on 3 for 2 - charity shop price, a snip at £2.50!) especially when finding what you want in a charity shop is a often a bit of a mission, and completely down to chance!

Anyway, YANBU, but I think charity shops need to step up their game a bit too. It's all fair and well for them to blame customers and society for their takings being lower, but very few of them are appealing and child-friendly places.

@lisad123wantsherquoteinDM - He's a very bright 8 years old. I'd gladly take any spare off your hands.

About a month before, same charity shops I managed to pick up loads of Horrible History, Science, and Geography books which he and DS1 love, as well as lots of Roald Dahl etc. They were a good price, about 50p each, and one shop no longer selling books used to have bargain 10p bins where I used to buy stacks. I've thought about this a lot and remembered seeing the xmas card/gift sections already up in these shops. I reckon they've cleared the kids books out to make room. We'll see what happens after Christmas, and until then I'll look in the shops in other areas.

I think with the prevailance of handheld computer games it is more difficult to get kids sitting reading. Take them away and offer them interesting books and they'll soon open it out of sheer boredom as they're used to constant stimulation. I love reading and am so glad my nephew's getting into it.

crablass, i dont think i have anything suitable then sorry my dads are 6 and 2years old. maybe you could do a carboot run over weekend