Tips for buying children's books

Here are a few tips for people who are starting to build up their children’s books’ collection:

1. Learn about children’s books and authors by reading on the internet. There are a lot of websites and blogs dedicated for children’s books.

2. Don’t buy everything you read about. Make notes. Find more about the books. Evaluate on the basis of your child’s interests and level of understanding.

3. How to look inside the book, when you are purchasing it online? Most books on Amazon offer sample pages (2-3 pages) to give a peek into the book. You could search specific books on YouTube also. Many people upload videos of books and book readings where you can see the inside pages and find out more about the book. Another way is to do Google Images search of any book.

4. The easiest way to check best prices on various websites is any price comparison website like India Bookstore.

5. Online shopping websites like Amazon and Flipkart are undoubtedly best places to buy your books for their competitive pricing. Infibeam is another website where you would often find books not available on any other site but the prices may be a little higher. I have personally used all these websites.

6. There are also some places from where you can buy second hand books because let’s face it, international titles are expensive. I have used Passaro Pre-owned Imported Children’s Books (Chennai) for buying second hand books. 

They have good storybooks in the range of Rs 100-150. Apart from these, there are several Facebook Groups on Used Children’s books. Many metro cities also have booksellers selling ‘Books-by-weight’ which means they will have Rs X per Kg of Books.

7. Indian children’s books publishers like Tulika, Tara Books, Karadi Tales and Pratham Books have a wide range of books in very affordable prices.

8. In last 4 years I have learnt that one needs to be patient in buying books for kids. I have bought books for as much as 800 rupees. Honestly speaking, for regular people, this is not a sound practice. Be in the lookout for discounts in the range of 60% and above.

9. You can also select a price range. For example, I select books upto Rs 200 and then go about choosing books. Kids just need some good story books to read.

Image source: Google

You may also want to see: 

Why you should Read Aloud to your Child
How to start Reading to your Child
5 Children's Fiction Titles We Love

Book Sale: Pune

On 15th August, I visited this annual Book Sale at C M Shah Hall Inst Of Engineers, Next to COEP Ground, Opp. Modern cafe at Shivajinagar, Pune. It is organised by Broadway Book Centre [Panaji, Goa]. Several books were available for flat Rs 50. This was the 5th year I was attending this Sale. Earlier, I used to visit it during our lunch breaks at office since it was very close from there. There would be no crowd on Week days and therefore, enough opportunity to scan through all the books. I have even taken my son there when he was 3 months old. My husband is very accommodating that ways. Though this venue is quite far from my place, and though I have and I buy several books all the time; he always agrees to take me to this Book Sale every year. He would not even ask me to hurry up.

I always believe that it is pure luck what you would find in a Book Sale. The books are laid out mostly at random. It is luck that leads you to the right kind of books. 

In this Sale, like every year, there were several Popular fiction titles of foreign authors in thriller, chicklit and romance genres, who I had never heard of. But there were also books like Little Princes for Rs 100 or Bill Bryson's The Lost Continent for Rs 50. 

The Sale is still going on and will be there till atleast next month, I suppose. I wanted to buy some books for my son but there weren't any for his age. They told me, they would get books for young kids in October. 

I selected 11 books for Rs 50 each and 3 were for Rs 100 each. I even bargained on that and got them all for Rs 800. They also have some offer where for every purchase of Rs 200, you would get a free book. Free books, as usual, are worthless. You can see the bunch below, and can easily spot the free books [I got 3].

Here's my loot, all for Rs 800 :-)

Every year, it is pure luck that I find out about this Sale. I hardly read paper, and they have very tiny ad about this Sale on one of the days. And I always happen to see it. There is no information about this Sale anywhere on the internet too. I think, it is mostly frequented by College crowd or people who live / move around the vicinity. 

If you are in Pune, do check it out! We hardly get any Book Sale here :-(

Book Sale: Amazing Independence Day Offers at Amazon India

Trust me, you would not like to miss these offers on Amazon India. These offers have not been advertised too well but I happened to catch them.

Independence Day Saving : Save 66% on selected books

Image courtesy: leadtoworld.com

There are a selected list of titles which are at 66% discount. There are many good books on this heavily discounted list. I already have several of them, so I settled for 2.

1. And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hossieni at Rs 203: This has been a much-awaited book and has been on my wishlist for sometime now. It is originally priced at Rs 599, and I bought it for Rs 203. You can say, this was just the offer I had been waiting for.

2. Lost & Found in India by Braja Sorensen: Bought this for Rs 101 [originally priced at Rs 299]

Click here to reach the offer page.

66 Kindle ebooks at Rs 66 each: Independence Day Offer

I had almost missed this one. I chanced upon this offer while searching for a book and finding its ebook at Rs 66. I was delirious! You must check out this list because several bestsellers are there. If you do not have a Kindle, simply download the free Kindle App on your device. I have the Kindle App on my Tab. 
These are the e-books I got.

1. How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia by Mohsin Hamid: This is the book I was talking about. This was another book, alongwith Khaled Hosseini's latest which has been on my list for a while.

2. Such A Long Journey by Rohinton Mistry

3. Their Language of Love by Bapsi Sidhwa

4. Difficult Daughters by Manju Kapur

Click here to reach the offer page.

Note: The details of the offers have been taken from the Amazon India website.

Happy Independence Day :-)

Book Sale: Discounts Alert January 2013

This discount offer has been going on for a while now at the Landmark Bookstores. They have a huge collection of books available under "3-for-2", which means that you can buy 3 books by paying for 2 from the books on offer. And this is a really good offer because several popular titles are available on offer.

Besides, Penguin India has been celebrating 25th anniversary. So, I also found 25% off on Penguin Titles at Landmark stores. But this was sometime back so it needs to be validated if the offer is still running.

Book List Oct-Dec 2011

I wanted to put up the list of books which I recently acquired in last 3 months. I have been caught up in the new responsibilities of taking care of a baby but that did not deter me from attending the Book Sale by Goa-Based Broadway Book Centre and the Landmark Book Sale, while also buying several books from Flipkart and Indiaplaza.

Here is the list:

From the Broadway Book Sale: Each one bought for Rs 50. The price was a major deciding factor. I would not have bought even single one of these, if it had been for anything more. I felt this Book Sale was more suited for the college crowd. There was nothing from Indian Publishers and nothing in Non Fiction.

1. Nanny Returns by Nicole Karus and Emma Mclaughlin: I had earlier bought ‘The Nanny Diaries’ from a similar Sale at Rs 50 (the hardbound edition), so when I saw this one, I got it. I am not too fond of such books but they are fine for general time pass reading, you know, immediately after you have read some heavy-duty stuff.  

I have read ‘Inconceivable’ by Ben Elton and it was quite funny, so I bought both the books listed below:

2. Dead Famous by Ben Elton

3. Past Mortem by Ben Elton

4. From Here to Maternity by Sinead Moriarty: Bought this one for the obvious reasons. I remember reading another book called ‘I don’t know how she does it’ and it was hilarious. Hope this one is on similar lines. Yet another general time pass stuff.

5. Monster by Allan Hall: I am sometimes drawn to real life crime stories. I have read ‘In Cold Blood’ by Truman Capote and look forward to reading more on true crime.

6. The Wasted Vigil by Nadeem Aslam: I have heard a lot about “Maps for Lost Lovers” and have it too. I have not read it yet. This one is also from the same author.

From Landmark Book Sale: The discounts at Book stores are not really great. Great discounts would only be on a handful books but that’s about it. So I looked for getting something on the “3 for 2” offer. And this offer also works for you only if all the books are of similar price. I usually end up buying several magazines on my visits, I prefer buying books online. Nevertheless, after a lot of research, I got the following books. First three are on the offer, rest as indicated.

I read these 2 books long back, and I wanted them for my collection:

7. India Unbound by Gurucharan Das

8. The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank

9. The Pregnant King by Devdutt Pattnaik: It is related to Mahabharata and I had been thinking of getting this for quite sometime now.

10. Don’t go Away, We’ll be right back by Indu Balachandran (on a special price of Rs 99)

11. Byline by M.J.Akbar (at 10% discount on the cover price)

I was heartbroken to see ‘First Day First Show’ for Rs 99. I recently bought it for Rs 374! But that is something which you cannot plan.

I bought the following from Flipkart and Indiaplaza:

12. Dr Spocks Baby And Child Care by Robert Needlman, Benjamin Spock: Smita told me it is a good reference book on Child Care. So how could I not have it J

13. Sita's Ramayana by Samhita Arni, Moyna Chitrakar: After collecting several perspectives on Mahabharata, I have started expanding my ‘Ramayana’ collection. It also happens to be my first Graphic Novel.

14. The Best Of Quest by Laeeq Futehally, Achal Prabhala, Arshia Sattar: I first read about the book in Pune Mirror. I have bought books on Eunice De Souza’s recommendation earlier also, like ‘the Locust and the Bird’. Later on, I read a lot about 'the Best of Quest' in many articles and magazines.

15. Lucknow Boy by Vinod Mehta: Since I follow Outlook and the book is a memoir of its editor, I kept finding more and more about the book through his column on the last page. I found it fascinating enough. Memoirs are interesting only when they are honest and provide new revelations. There’s nothing exciting about sugar candy talk and reading something which is already a public knowledge. This issue of Outlook even featured excerpts from the book. The book sounds salacious!

Following 2 had been recommended by a friend who has studied psychology. I was discussing about reading on child psychology.

16. Developmental Psychology by Elizabeth Hurlock

17. Child Development 6ed by Elizabeth Hurlock

18. Half The Sky - How To Change The World by Nicholas D. Kristof, Sheryl Wudunn: I had my eyes on this one for a long time but only imported editions were available which were quite expensive. I recently bought it for a good price.

Some more additions for my ‘Ramayana’ collection. These have interesting perspectives on Sita and Ram, which reminds me of a superb animation film 'Sita Sings the Blues'.

19. In Search of Sita: Revisiting Mythology by NamitaGokhale, Malashri Lal

20. Lost Loves by Arshia Sattar

Following are supposed to be from Ravana’s perspective.

21. Ravanayan (Issue 1) by Vijayendra Mohanty, Vivek Goel

22. Ravanayan (Issue 2) by Vijayendra Mohanty, Vivek Goel

23. Ravanayan (Issue 3) by Vijayendra Mohanty, Vivek Goel

24. We Need To Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver: I discovered this book while reading an article on parenting. I found this highly recommended for all parents:

The above listed books have been bought only between October and December, and December is not over yet! One of these days, I would like to put up the list of my entire collection. I recently categorized and re-organized them.


Image Source: http://www.dailyclipart.net