Ollie's Presents a Library List

Do you have an Ollie's where you live?

We do.

It's sort of a random junk place where they buy overstocks from places like Walmart and sell things really cheap. It's the kind of place where you leave buying things you didn't know you wanted and you certainly don't need.

Not a place I normally shop, mostly because I hate shopping and places like that make me very, very tense.

I don't really blame a good friend of mine for my lack of self-control, but I kind of do, because she approached me the other day with the great news that Ollie's had hardcover picture books for four dollars or less, and that some of them were really good. Then she presented me with a book she'd found for me there, a book she knew I loved but didn't own:


One Cool Friend by Toni Buzzeo

She said there were more great books there, not a lot of course, but a few, and I should check it out.

So the next morning the kids and I went over there. "You can each pick one book," I said.

And then I saw their selection. It was like taking a vampire to a blood bank and telling him to select his favorite eight ounces. "Oh, you pick that one for yourself," I heard myself saying to the kids. "I'll get this one for you too and this one; that's okay, I didn't really mean you can just pick one." Then I heard myself saying, "Can someone help me carry these?" Then I heard myself saying, "Oh, Mary, I think I need a cart, could you go get me a cart?"

Carts are bad ideas when you are book shopping. I should know that by now, shouldn't I?

These were HARDBACK copies of really great books, normally anywhere from $20 to $35, and they were four dollars or less. Some were two dollars. Two.

I got a lot of books. Oops. And I am now on a book buying freeze for six months. I am sequestering myself, darn it, and if you hear me mention on this blog that I bought any book for any reason until October 23rd (so far away!), I assign you with the task of writing something mean and sarcastic in the comments. Just to get me back on track.

Anyway, I digress. But here are some of the books we picked up. They are so lovely! Lovely, lovely, lovely!

Let's Count Goats by Mem Fox
Max and Ruby's Bedtime Book by Rosemary Wells
Tomie dePaola's Mother Goose
Teeddie: the Story of Young Teddy Roosevelt by Don Brown
The Nightingale Illustrated by Igor Oleynikov
Bear's Picture by Daniel Pinkwater
Alpha's Bet by Amy Krouse Rosenthal
Hook by Ed Young
Erika-San by Allen Say
Frankenstein Takes the Cake by Adam Rex
Probuditi by Chris Van Allsburg