best place to buy CHEAP kids books?

[kiki02]

thanks. no garage sales that i visit!

 

[princesspwrhr]

used - thrift stores, "Friends of [library]" sales, freecycle, craigslist

new - scholastic book clubs, half.com, online versus any brick & mortar store

 

[poohfriend77]

Too bad you haven't had luck at garage sales. I bought lots for my DDs there. We also get a bunch at Goodwill, and our public library has a shop selling used books (old library books and stuff donated by people) every weekend.

If you're looking for new books, Amazon usually has the best prices. A lot of kids' books are included in a "Buy 3, Get One Free" deal.

 

[mollybug2]

There is an online site called bookcloseouts. I have found some cute kids' books there for very little.

 

[Ginny Favers]

I'm a fan of Scholastic Book Fairs, since it helps support your kids' school.

 

[HM]

Try Abebooks? I haven't looked for children's books there, but have bought used books for myself in good condition several times.

 

[pooh's honey]

Do you have any children's consignment sales near you? Around here they usually run 2x a year (spring and fall). You can Google search Consignment Mommies to find on in your area. I've gotten bags of books for my son for a small fraction of the cost.

I also second Goodwill (for both books and children's DVDs). Good luck!

 

[missmary]

Totally Scholastic book clubs. They always have 1 book in every catalog, every month, for $1. So if you order from all 7 of their catalogs, just the $1 book, but do it every month, you can really amass a library quickly.

Plus, they will let anyone sign up for the catalogs. If you home school, that's fine. If you want to sign up your child's daycare, you can. If your school doesn't do book clubs, see if they will. Ask around your neighborhood, social circles, and see if anyone gets catalogs. Then, you can order online through their school and order from any of the available catalogs. Shipping is free. And teachers earn bonus points from the sales.

I love, love, love Scholastic. The have great variety and pretty darn good quality for really inexpensive books. There have been a few books that had middle pages come out, but a quick fix with tape makes it good as new!

 

[trinchick]

I'll second the suggestion to check your local library to see if they have book sales. Ours has them twice a year, and we really clean up. Last month, we couldn't make it to the sale until the end of the day. They had a "power hour" where you could fill a huge shopping bag for $5. I got DD TONS of books (like maybe 50 or 60 early chapter books; Magic Treehouse, A to Z Detectives, Cam Jansen, Roald Dahl and the like), plus a few CDs/DVDs and five hardcovers for myself. All for $5!

Also a PP mentioned bookcloseouts.com. I've bought large quantities of single titles from them to use in birthday party goodie bags.

 

[Zhoen]

don't give up on secondhand! I found a place near here that does all books 5/$1 and then gives me 25% off that! I got 4 like-new goosebumps books to include in DD8's birthday bag as well as a brand-new "man-libs" (dirty madlibs) that I gave to my husband as a joke. Meanwhile, at Goodwill, I picked up two "39 clues" books for $1.50 that were on a wishlist at paperback swap. I sent them off and now can get other books for my kids. (I'm slowly getting back my Tamora Pierce collection that DSD made off with...)

What age group(s) are you looking at? What are their interests?

 

[LuLuO]

Goodwill. Here hardcovers are $0.50 and paperbacks are $0.25. There are some that are a dollar or two like the big Disney storybook collections.

 

[irishsharon]

Really love savers and just got home from ds book fair at school,schoolastic has many books for a $1 or $2.

 

[ArmyWife7]

Another vote for scholastic. They were running a special last month (not sure if it is still available) that with your online order, you received a $5 coupon for your next online order.

 

[blessedby3]

I get tons of books at my local Goodwill stores for my dd. 50 cents is a price that is hard to beat!

 

[Dizisfun]

We have an Ollie's Store near us and they always have loads of books with really good prices.