I just bought my 8 year old daughter 50 books for the summer holidays

[mamalife1990]

As its the summer holidays I decided that I would let my 8 year buy some books for over the summer. She absolutely loves to read and I realised that it might be nice for her to have some new books to read over the next 6 weeks.

So I ordered her some books. However most of the books I ordered were series. I got a few individual books. But most of the books were series. Meaning I didn't really calculate how many books I was actually buying. My plan was, wait until all the books arrive, put them all in one big box and give the box to my daughter.

The last box arrived today so I went into my room and got every book and series out of their boxes....and I realised...that's a lot of books. So I decided to count and there is 50 books. 50! When you're buying book series, it's easy to forget how many books you are actually buying.

I gave my daughter the box and she is extremely happy. So seeing her smile was worth the financial cost of all these books.

Let's just hope my husband doesn't want a divorce after seeing so many books. Was this financially responsible? Nope. Do I regret anything? Nope.

Now my 4 year old wants some new books too 😭 Thankfully the books he would read are a lot cheaper lol

I ordered around 20 that were 99c on the Kindle for my DD at the start of the summer and thought that was a lot so fair play!

I mean, you could have taken her to the library, but go nuts I guess!

I'm praying all these books are enough for the whole summer 😭

We go to the library all the time!

£150 for 50 books sounds like a bargain - that’s only £3 a book. Were you buying second-hand or did you shop around a lot to find discounts?

You definitely managed to get a lot for your money anyway - I’m sure she’ll have a lovely summer reading them.

Some of my happiest memories as a child are the special occasions where my mum and dad took me to the midnight launches of the Harry Potter books at our local bookshop.

I remember the summer holidays before Year 6 being allowed to stay up reading HP6 all night (well until I passed out at 3am anyway). Instilling a love of books in your kids is a wonderful thing to do, I'm glad your daughter is so happy!

A lot of the books are part of a series. So there was some discounts for buying the whole series

Ah, that’s fab! I bet she can’t wait to get stuck into her new pile of reading. There’s nothing like the feeling of knowing you’ve got lots of new books to choose from.

When I was about your daughter’s age my uncle gave us a huge box of children’s books that my cousins had outgrown (they’re much older than me; they were already teenagers when I was born) and I still remember the sheer excitement of going through them all and deciding which ones to read first. It was like being given a box of treasure.

Wouldn’t it have been more fun for her to choose?

When I was little you could only take 5 books out at the library, so I used to go twice a week. I loved reading as a child and that has continued into adulthood, it’s my favourite thing to do and I still read 3-5 books per week. I think this is lovely for your daughter and so, so good for her.

I know what type of books she loves. She had already read the first books of all the series that I bought. Plus, this was a surprise :)

8 year old me would have been over the moon! I'm still really excited whenever I order a bunch of books online (ones I can't find in the library where I am, as I live abroad and the selection of English language books is limited) and they arrive, its like Christmas opening those boxes even though I already know what's in them.

Will you also need to buy a new book shelf?

Oh my goodness, totally!

I remember my dad coming home from a business trip to America when I was 8y old, and presenting me with two hardback books that have remained absolute joys in my life. I sat down there and then on the carpet in the middle of the living room, reading one and hugging the other.

The first was The Wizard of Oz, the second was an autographed copy of The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles. (Dad had been invited to a potential associate’s house, his wife arrived home and went to say hello, and when she learned that the visitor had an 8yo daughter she fetched one of her books to give the little girl. The lady was Julie Andrews.)

Oh the joy of being given books 😊😊😊

And, years later, the joy of introducing your own children to your old friends. 😊😊😊

Now that I think of it, almost all my happiest childhood memories are book-related 😂

She's been reading all day 🤣. She has started reading the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series.

That’s nice. Once your daughter has read them I’m sure other children will get to enjoy them too x

I would’ve put at least one series away for Christmas I think!

You would have thought it was Christmas morning based on how happy my daughter was when she opened the box of books 😭.

My son wants a summer book box now. So I'm already searching online for some books that he would love!

We have a spare room in our house we we have turned into a home library!

Our rule is that we don’t say no to books. If it’s not available via the library or it’s something they’ll benefit for having for a long time (reference type books for example) then we buy it. Whatever they grow out of we can donate.

Trust me. She will read all these books very fast lol. I can buy her some more books at Christmas time :)

Amazing!! What a lucky girl she is!

I do a book advent calendar for my toddler some I reuse every year! But buy some new ones!! I also won’t say no to books!

I just love books good job I work in a library 😂

My kids are bigger now but this is what The Book People were amazing for. I got mine so many series of books from there and then when both kids were done they went to friends, the school or a charity shop.

You can never have too many books IMHO. That her face lit up is a wonderful gift. Even if she is still making her through them next Easter, she will have a lovely set of books glinting at her with the promise of new adventures!