"There's so much more to a book than just the reading."

A few weeks back me and the awesomeness that is Emma from Another Last Story were talking about books and charity shops which we seem to do a lot when we get together as the two go perfectly hand in hand. Emma came up with the idea of a fun book related charity shop competition and after chatting about it a little, the day was upon us and it was time to put our plans in to motion. We met up on the morning of the great book off in Shrewsbury, where there are plenty of charity shops to mooch around. Before heading out and starting the competition though we popped in to the library with the boys to read a few books in hope that it would be a great start to an afternoon of children's literature.

The plan was to hit the charity shops armed with £5. We had a list of rules, one adult book, a selection of children's books and one gifted book to each other, but minutes before we kicked off the fun we decided to just go and buy books, spend a fiver and meet up to compare our spoils. Emma threw a huge spanner in the works early on when she declared 'No Shoplifting!' so as you can imagine the fun started on a down note. There was a bit of smack talk before we kicked off but then we went our separate ways. We had roughly 40 minutes before meeting for lunch so we split up and me and Opeie hit the shops hard. Our first find was a book about Nessie which fit in perfectly with Mrs M working away at Loch Ness this week, It was a great way to start the hunt.

We managed to grab some great bargains in what turned out to be the first leg of our book hunting adventure. The plan was to meet up at 12:00, i tried my luck with a text saying "how about 12:30" to which I received a rather blunt reply "12:00", that told us! We managed to grab Oliver Jeffers A way back home and a vintage nursery rhymes book that had seen better days but had a lot of character (I knew Emma would love it). We regrouped back at the library for lunch and added our friends Lucie and Martha to the fun. The smack talk continued and Lucie joined forces with Emma (because clearly she needed the help).

Rose found a quiet spot for lunch on Charles Darwin, meow.

With £1.50 left to spend it was time for round 2 and me and Opeie ventured to a different part of town where the charity shops are a little more classy. Opeie had set an extra task of finding a cool pop up book for us, which we did although it took us over our budget so we couldn't include it in the game. When I visit any charity shop I always have a few "Id love to find" books in mind. At the moment I keep hoping Ill stumble upon the Robert Sabuda pop up edition of The wonderful Wizard of Oz because I cant warrant paying the price it goes for online or anything by Florence Upton (I love those illustrations).

We spent our remaining money on an adults Roald Dahl book for Emma that I had never seen before as I knew she was a big fan. Me and Opeie had come home from a morning out last week to find presents waiting for us from Emma and Matthew, which was so kind of them, so we thought it was cute to stick with the Roald Dahl theme.

Part two flew by and we arranged to meet at Shrewsbury museum for what Emma called "an Opeie friendly hot chocolate" (Soya). As the kids sat and had what looked like a very sophisticated coffee date us adults filled the table with our findings and exchanged gifts. Emma had found us an atlas of Dinosaurs which went down a treat with Opeie and a copy of Mr Popper's penguins which me and Opeie are really looking forward to reading after we have finished James and the giant peach.

Sophisticated and friendly hot chocolate aside it did get to that point in the afternoon where the winner had to be announced so we turned to the referee's that had joined us mid competition. While going through our spoils we found that the other team already owned our gifted Oliver Jeffers book so it went to Lucie and Martha which may have swung Martha's vote when she announced we had won. Thankfully though our awesome children decided that 'everyone is the winner' and rightly so if you can pick up that many amazing books for £5 how can you not be a winner. 

Our charity shop adventure was so much fun and we are now thinking about making it a regular thing as it will be interesting to see what we find in different towns. It looks like Bridgnorth may be our next destination so if you are from the surrounding area be generous with your book donations. 

As we made our way back to the car everyone pointed out foxes for our next Gifts from the pirates fox hunt post too...

...and Emma pointed out 'There's a couple of Foxes over here!', Love these guys!

 Another Last Story have got plenty to say about our afternoon of fun and Emma certainly has a way with words, I love reading her posts, so check it out...

There's Nothing Like A Bit Of Healthy Competition

 

"IT ALL BEGAN when Floyd got his kite stuck in A TREE. He tried pulling and swinging but it WOULDN'T COME UNSTUCK"

I love how a child's imagination can take an insignificant task and instantly turn it in to a fun mini activity. I'd love to be able to think like Opeie for a day he is so much fun to be around. This afternoon while I was starting lunch Opeie wandered in and asked if he could help, so I found him a big tray and handed him a big piece of broccoli and a plastic knife so that he could chop it up for me.

Within about 30 seconds he was getting pretty hacked off with the knife not cutting through the broccoli (safety first though right?) but then he randomly started laughing. He's got a really infections laugh and it grabs my attention straight away, usually because its something really fun (he's got a great imagination).

Opeie was holding the broccoli laughing and said 'look daddy it's like the book 'stuck'". Well that was it, the food came off the hob and we went looking for things to get stuck in Opeie's broccoli tree.

We went straight to the LEGO and Opeie knew exactly what he was looking for, a boat, a bicycle, a ladder and a fireman. We couldn't find a whale so that was replaced with a shark, a deer and a polar bear. Opeie threw item after item up his broccoli tree...

I had soon forgotten all about lunch and i was dragged in to Opeie's exciting world where he just comes up with something and instantly puts it in to action. I eventually had to go back to my mundane task but Opeie was more than happy stuffing things in to his Broccoli tree giggling to himself. It looks amazing to be 3, i wish i could remember anything from my childhood back then.

"So he kept eating books... And he kept getting smarter... ...and smarter ...and smarter. He went from eating books whole to eating them three or four at a time."

Going to the Library has been great for ploughing through books with the boys at no cost. I'm annoyed at myself for not taking advantage of it sooner as we've brought hundreds of books for Opeie (and Seth) over the years...

 ...many of them once finished with, finding their way to charity shops or have been read so much that they have fallen apart and we've used them for craft activities. 

Our visits to the library have also introduced us to one of Opeie's new favourite authors and Mine and Mrs Ms favourite children's illustrators. I'm surprised with all the books we've read to Opeie Oliver Jeffers hadn't popped up sooner. As soon as we had read 'this moose belongs to me' we were all hooked and as soon as we had returned the few of his books we had borrowed from the library I went on a mission to get our own copies of these beautifully written and illustrated books.

With Mrs M being a huge Dick Bruna fan and me being a Dr Seuss addict it's actually nice for us to get into a childrens author a little more recent. We haven't gone a bed time for weeks without having at least one of his stories read before the boys go to sleep and it's great that Seth has got really in to them too and has even been reading them to his little brother.

We're always on the lookout for new books and Authors so if there's anyone you can recommend send your recommendations our way. Our new love of Oliver Jeffers has started yet another page in Opeie's reading diary and it seems there is no stopping Opeie's love of books.