(upbeat music) - Welcome friends to this episode of the "Everyday Educator" podcast. I'm your host, Lisa Bailey, and I'm excited to spend some time with you today as we encourage one another, learn together, and ponder the delights and challenges that make homeschooling the adventure of a lifetime. Whether you're just considering this homeschooling possibility or deep into the daily delight of family learning, I believe you'll enjoy thinking along with us.

But don't forget, although this online community is awesome, you'll find even closer support in a local CC community. So go to classicalconversations.com and find a community near you today. Well, listeners, it's that time of year. It's transition time. And as we transition away from summer and into our community days, many of us are dusting off our anti-charts and our memory work.

And I wanna encourage us today to do one thing that I believe will set us all up for success. I wanna celebrate something that I really think is a superpower for homeschoolers or really anyone who wants to be a learner for life. I wanna talk about books. And today I have a fellow enthusiast with me who will hopefully convert you guys too.

Jennifer Courtney, welcome to "Everyday Educator." - Thanks for having me. I love when I get to join you. - I love it when you and I get to talk about books. I really, initially, I had thought about calling this episode, "My Superpower is Keeping the Books." And then I was gonna introduce you as the keeper of the books and say that you would willingly deputize this all.

But I mean, really, that seemed too nerdy even for us. But let me ask you this, would you want to be keeper of the books? - Well, you know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna answer that question by telling a story. So- - Yes, that's perfect. - A few years back, well, more than a few years back now, probably over two decades, had a panic attack because digital books were rapidly proliferating and e-readers and bookstores were closing.

And I stood in a bookstore in my hometown that was closing. And I thought, my momentary impulse, which I did not act on, was to buy all the books. And I told my husband, which is why we didn't do it. But I just had that moment of thinking, what if print books were lost?

And so I did not buy a copy of every book there, but I have, ever since that day, been concerned that we will lose these resources. And so I have been building a library in my home. And so, yes, the answer is, I would like to be known as the keeper of the books.

- Yes, and I love that you are building that library in your home. So expand a little bit on what keeper of the books would mean and why you think that would be an important job. - Yeah, so when I was reading "Animal Farm" with my students in challenge two one year, I remember thinking how easy it was for the rulers to take away the constitution that the animals had agreed on, by slowly erasing the parts of it.

And I remember thinking that's kind of what, that was my reaction to the digital books and e-readers, that it would be, we need to change things. And also, as we look at, I was reading C.S. Lewis's "Abolition of Man" and thinking about how we are humans, we are in soul bodies, and therefore we like to have incarnate things.

It's good for us. And so between those two readings, I began to really think that we need an effort to preserve books. And I think that homeschool families are likely to be part of that effort because we do value books and reading them with our families. And I already had quite a library going.

My parents, I'm very fortunate, my parents moved around a lot for my dad's work and everywhere they went, they took all of my childhood books and then when I had my own home, that was the seed for my library that now is in my home. - That's great, that's great.

So you actually had some that you could build on. So is that how we become keepers of books? I want you, you've alluded a couple of times to your library and I happen to have seen pictures of it, which I envy greatly. I want you to talk to us about building a library because I can feel lots of us thinking, what do you mean by that?

Do you just have lots of books in your house? Do you have lots of bookshelves? I had one of my girl's friends ask one time, y'all have a lot of books. Do you just have books everywhere? And my daughter opened up a cabinet in the living room that you couldn't see unless you opened the door and showed them more books and then she opened a door in our house and said, this is the unfinished part of the basement.

We have shelves between the slats in the basement and this child's eyes got really big. But what does that mean? Tell us about your library and how we could become keepers of the books. - Yeah, so like you, I have had a lifetime of having books all over my house, in closets, in cabinets, sometimes on the floor, although I don't love it when that happens.

Between my collection that I started with of children's books and then I majored in English literature so I had a lot of books from that. And then when I became a homeschool parent and was researching homeschooling and classical education, I acquired more books. And over the years, of course, I've acquired many books to read with my children.

So this past spring, I got to have a lifelong dream fulfilled. My husband and I started shopping for bookcases and rolling library ladders because we finally-- - Oh. - I have many, like you, I have many children that are growing up and leaving me so I finally had a space where I could do this.

And so we bought the shelves and then my daughter who is in her last year of college, over Christmas break, she inventoried all of our books on a digital app. And then my parents came over. This is quite a whole family effort. So my husband-- - That's what I was gonna say.

Everybody's in on this. - Everyone is. My husband did the shelves and built the rail for the ladder. My daughter inventoried the books and then my children and my parents sat around my dining room table and we covered all of the children's books in plastic and checkout cards in the front and stamps that showed that they belong in my library so that when this academic year starts, homeschool families can begin checking out my books.

So what is upstairs in the official library are books that I'm willing to loan. I still have collector's books in the downstairs and books that I use for work down near me. But the library is actually a library where people are already coming and borrowing books that I have.

- That is, I wonder if people are listening and they're like me, I'm sitting here listening to you and my mouth is sort of hanging open. That's the coolest thing ever that you have that in your house, like a real room dedicated to books that you are willing to lend out intentionally placed on, I happen to know, a beautiful shelving with, my heart's desire, a rolling library ladder and you're ready to lend them.

I love that you are covering the children's books with plastic, knowing that to love a book is a messy thing for a child. But I think that's cool that you are super, you're not just willing to lend your books, you are preparing to do that intentionally and in an orderly way.

That's a cool thing. - It's very fun. So I do have, my library specializes in lots and lots of older children's literature. So I have sweet mysteries from the 1930s to the 1950s series for young readers. And my mom at first was, when she was helping me with the library said, I can't believe you're gonna lend these.

And my point, what I said to her was, they are four children and they're being lost and I want them to be read. And if something happens to them, I'll replace them. But I don't want them to sit on my shelf. I want small children to read them. And so I have one very faithful six-year-old who in fact is coming over tomorrow to get her next batch of "Happy Hollister" mysteries from the 1980s.

(laughs) So it's really fun to have some repeat customers. - That is so dear. I like that, that you have, I like what you told your mom that books are made for children to read. Children's books are for children to read. And if you really are worried that books are being lost, the way to fix that is not to hoard them, but to share them.

I like that very much. So you collected your books from childhood and you described that a little bit as you went along. And I found myself thinking, oh yeah, I got books there. Oh yeah, I bought a lot of books there. Oh, I have those books too. I think a lot of us are probably realizing that we have a lot of books.

How do we go about organizing our books? - Well, that was an interesting quest for me. So what I finally decided to do is, because I didn't want it, I don't have enough books to really, form a Dewey Decimal System, for example. - Right. - I don't have- - Right, right.

- I have about 1700 books. So at the moment and climbing. So what I decided to do is have shelves by genre and so I have a shelf for mysteries, a shelf for contemporary literature, a shelf for older classics, a shelf for history and so on. And what I did is I put them in order by, of course, by author and series.

So they're alphabetical by author or they're organized by a series. But I started with the youngest readers at the bottom shelf and then so that the adult books are on the highest shelves and it goes down until the youngest children are on the bottom shelves where they can reach them.

I want them to pull them out and look at them and see if they're interested, so. - That's good. That makes sense. That makes a lot of sense. I think that, yeah, I think that is, I know that for me and my husband, organizing all of the books we have, has been the hardest thing for us.

- They get unorganized very easily, don't they? - Oh, yeah. Yes. And you know what else I discovered is that my husband and I have different ideas of the categories of some books or even of the categories that we should have. 'Cause I love your idea of not using the Dewey Decimal System.

So because, well, partly because that's a pain and partly because most of us don't know that system very well anymore. I love the category system. - So were you the one who decided the categories? 'Cause that's what my husband and I argue about. - Yes, I did. And there are some that overlap and I just did the best I could to keep it consistent.

And right now, because of the size of my library, when people come over, I know where things are that they might want. So I think you and I have talked about this. One of the things I acquired was the landmark history books from the 1950s. And so I've had a lot of kids come over and get those for their essential spaces of history or because I read them in conjunction with whatever foundation cycle we're on.

So it was pretty easy just to put all those in the history section. Some of them probably could be in a different category but it was just easier to keep them all together so that children know where to go when they come over. - That makes really good sense.

That way it's easy to find stuff. So you collected your books. Some of them were gifted to you from childhood, I'm sure. And still as an adult, people are giving you books. I just gave you a book. And then how else do you collect your books? Where do you look?

- So now that I'm almost an empty nester, I make a lot of trips with my husband on his business trips and I have used bookstores in every town I would go to. And so I have some really good places that I go that I tend to know after a couple of trips if they're gonna have the kinds of children's literature I want.

I do occasionally look at places like eBay or archive books but I do try to go to the used bookstores and support them because I would like them to remain open and because I think they're doing good work as keepers of the books also. - That's good. - Yeah, so I have some favorites.

In fact, this weekend, I went to one of my favorites and then found out that just hours later your eldest daughter was there. - Oh my goodness. - With each other, but I did find some good finds there. I got some new hardback copies of Andrew Lang's fairy books which I find very charming.

Yeah, so one thing I forgot to mention to you too about the organization is that I do have a lot of picture books for really young readers, toddler, preschool age, and those I don't organize at all because, and they're on a very low shelf just outside the library out in the landing where they can plop themselves down and pull off whatever they want.

- That's so good because that's the way little people read. They go by the pictures and they go by what looks interesting. Yeah, that's so good. - There's absolutely no organization to that shelf because I don't want the moms to feel stressed that their children are pulling off 10 and 20 things to look at.

- You know what, that's really important that we be, I can imagine that once I got my shelves just like I wanted them to be, I think I would hold my breath or maybe even cringe every time somebody put a book back in the wrong place. Do you just have to get over yourself?

- Yeah, you just have to keep holding. I mean, you know, usually, I mean, I'm not as big as a public library would be. I'm still very much at private library status. So people bring back four or five books at a time and then my youngest helps me reshelf.

And a lot of times if I'm, a lot of times when people come, I'm in work meetings with you and other people. - Yeah, yeah. - So she's kind of my junior library and she helps people find what they need and takes back the ones they're returning. So I've had a limited clientele this past spring while I was getting everything organized.

And now this fall, I'm gonna open it up wider. - That's so fun. Do you just tell all your friends or do you tell people in your CC community or in your neighborhood or in your church? How are people finding out about the Courtney Library? - I'm trying to go a little bit slowly until I get my feet under me.

So I started with my CC community and my neighborhood so that I had a good sense of the families that are coming and then I'll open it up to other CC communities in the area 'cause I live in a city where there are lots and lots of CC communities.

So I can get a lot of traffic just from that. And then I'll see about expanding it beyond that. And there are a few people at church that know. - Yeah. - So yeah, I'm just kind of spreading the word slowly until we as a family get the hang of this lending gig.

- Yeah, well, I think that's awesome. I wanna ask you this question, why? 'Cause some people who love books and there are lots of us who love books, but some people really like to keep their books to themselves, why are your books not just for you? - Yeah, one of the things that was breaking my heart that I kept hearing from this new generation of homeschool families that's different from probably when you and I were homeschooling is that there are fewer and fewer books on the public library shelves and there are fewer and fewer things that they approve of.

And that broke my heart a little because we can't all afford to own all the books that we want to read. And when children, especially when children are small, they can be voracious readers. And so they can go through 30 picture books in a week. So we can't afford to have all of those.

And it really broke my heart hearing their stories of things that they wanted to read. And then on the other end of the spectrum, I had students in my challenge two, three, and four classes that would get interested in an author and say, oh, Mrs. Courtney, do you have George McDonald's Lilith?

And I could say, yes, I do. And you're welcome. - Oh. - So I just really had that heart to minister to these families. And I have carefully selected the children's books so that the parents don't need to worry about what they're pulling off the shelves. So they can be comfortable that knowing that there will be books here and that the books will be ones they would feel comfortable with their kids reading.

- I love that. That's really, that's really good. That's a good heart to have. Let me ask you this. Have you had much trouble with books not coming back? - So far, no, but it's been a pretty tight circle of people I know. So they've been worried about getting the books back to me and the inventory will help, you know, that I can, I do know who has them and when.

Whereas in the past, I did lose a lot of books loaning them, but that's because I never made an attempt to know who took it and when they took it, I just loaned them out. So, so far the systems are working. I am quite sure that will happen at some point as the circle gets wider and then I'll just, you know, I'll just replace them.

- You'll just buy another one. - Yeah. - Yes, I know some of mine, I've gotten bitten by that before 'cause I am a lover of books and I love to give people books I think they will love. They say, I like this, I like this kind of thing, I don't like this kind of thing, I'm like, I have just the book for you.

But I have been bitten by people by lending out some of my favorite books and I've lost them. And sometimes they were books that were out of print or hard to get and so I haven't been able to replace them. So I really, really like your system of library cards with due dates and all that stuff.

Let me ask you this, how does sharing your books change your world? - Well, it's really been a joy to make connections with people. So the family of this young one who checks out all my "Happy Hollister" mysteries, and by the way, those are very charming, they're about a family of five kids and a dog who go around solving mysteries, it's a perfect homeschooling series.

It's a really strong family element, they're just precious. And so it's been fun to see how excited she gets when she realizes how very many there are in the series and how she can continue to work with her friends. And then on the other end, the landmark history books that I have were books that my dad devoured as a child and he is rereading them and that's been a precious connection for us to go and talk about these books together.

So he just finished "The Story of Oklahoma," which is where we live, and really enjoyed rereading that childhood classic and then we got to talk about it over dinner and that's been just precious to connect with people about what they're reading. - I think that's really great. And you know, if you wanna have people to talk to about your books, then share your books and then they can have the experience too and then you do have something to talk about.

I really like that. Okay, I want us to turn, I've loved, tell me, this is a question I really wanted to know. Do you have, and I know your propensity to cheat at these kinds of games and questions, so I'm prepared. What is your current favorite or what's, I wanted to ask you what's your favorite book in your library, but I know that that would not go well.

What are you most excited to have in your library? - I think I was most excited to get a hold of those landmark history books because they have lovely illustrations and they are keeping American history alive for our families today. You know, they were written in an era when patriotism was still the norm.

And I think it's important for us to preserve the stories of our country's heritage. In fact, I was on a words aptly spoken book club yesterday and we were talking about Johnny Tremaine and how as we get further and further away from the American revolution, the stories of their sacrifices, the miraculous ways that they were saved are being lost.

And so I really appreciate having a lot of books for, you know, 10 to 12 year olds in my library that are about the people who formed our country and who explored it as it expanded. I just think there's nothing more exciting for young people to read than that.

- Yes, I love it. And I remember reading all of those kinds of books in the public library and in our church library when I was little and biographies of presidents from the time they were little until they were world leaders. And I remember reading a biography of Clara Barton and just, it really does form your ideas of what a noble sacrificial leader is or can be and how to grow those virtues from childhood on up.

And I love it that you are really on a mission to preserve that. That's cool. - Yeah, I also was fascinated by Clara Barton and Florence Nightingale. - Yes. - And their adventures in nursing. So I love sharing those stories with families. I also, you know I'm gonna cheat.

So I'm gonna say one more thing. I did just four weeks ago acquire a hardback copy of "Invincible Louisa" is the award-winning biography from the 1920s about Louisa May Alcott, who is one of my all-time favorite authors. And I now have a beautiful illustrated hardcover of her biography. And my mom said, "Surely you're not going to lend that one out." Surely I am.

I'm going to put a plastic cover on it and I'm going to show that some young lady who is a lover of Louisa May Alcott will enjoy that book as much as I did as a child. - Oh, how wonderful to pass on the thrill that you felt to another young lady.

That's really special. Well, if I get to Oklahoma, I may just check it out myself. As homeschoolers, so I know that some of us on the call are just starting out as homeschoolers. And so I said at the top of the hour together, starting your library could really be the superpower for homeschoolers.

As we're starting out or while our families are young, why is a library such a great place to begin our homeschooling journey? - Yeah, so I acquired a set of things when I was very first setting up for our family to homeschool that I felt were very important. I got a children's dictionary.

I got a science encyclopedia, a history encyclopedia, an atlas. And then I had a couple of what I call books of books. One of those is now carried in the CC bookstore and that's "Honey for a Child's Heart" because I knew I needed good recommendations of books. So some of those I got from other homeschool parents and people in my church, but some of them I got from books of books like "Honey for a Child's Heart." But I felt it was important to have that seed of a reference library so that whenever we were curious about something, we could look it up on a map or we could look it up in the encyclopedia.

And my children did spend hours pouring over, particularly the science encyclopedia because they loved learning about different creatures that God has made. So that's where my library, my homeschool library really started was with those key reference materials that I knew the children would use. - Me too, Jennifer. And you know what I did?

This is funny. I would go in those early years when my kids were curious about everything, I would go to used book sales at libraries and buy even old textbooks, especially when my children weren't reading it. So they could be really old textbooks that had great pictures that were our jumping off place or just really basic information that I could read and then water down for them to whatever level they were.

And so those used book sales at libraries are a treasure trove for homeschoolers. - Yes. And one thing I find often at used book sales are old collections. I mean, I'm partial to the collections that I've helped to make, which are the Echoes books. - Right. - But I also have lots of other collections.

And so Harvard used to publish a series called the Junior Grade Books. Then there was a series published in Chicago called My Book House that just are volumes and volumes of stories, some fictional and some nonfiction that young people find fascinating. And I collect those almost every time I stumble across one because they have such a great repository and they have aged very well for young children, but that gives you lots of stories to choose from.

And in fact, I have a friend whose son is moving with her only grandbaby. They are moving to Asia as missionaries and we're trying to figure out how to help them build a library. And those kinds of collection books are very good for that 'cause they can't take anything and everything with them as they go.

- Yes. - We found a couple of great fairy tale anthologies and picture book anthologies 'cause he's little. He's only one. - Oh gosh. - Trying to think of some collections of things that he could take. So I think those collection type books are a good place to start when you're building your library because then you can get a lot of stories in one volume.

- Yes, that's really good. And to realize that your library can grow as your children grow. You don't have to have all the things at the beginning in order to think that you have a library. Your library can grow as your children grow and as their interests grow and as your interests grow and as their abilities to read expand.

- Yeah. - So that's a good thing. - That's a good point that you made. I add to my library all the time. So last spring, Tim and I went to the Laura Ingalls Wilder farm in Missouri. - Oh yeah. - And I bought a hardback set of her books 'cause my paperback books that I bought at the Scholastic Book Fair in 19-- - Oh yes.

- Yeah. - And I knew I couldn't loan those. So I bought hardback copies of all her books that I could loan. - That's good. I was gonna ask you that. That was one of the questions on my list. Do you mostly have hardbacks or do you have, I know you must have, do you lend out paperback books too?

- I do. I lend both, but I really am trying, especially for the under 12 set to acquire hardbacks whenever I can. So that again, I don't want parents worrying. I'm trying to get sturdy things that they feel comfortable letting their kids read, lying outside on a picnic blanket or wherever they want to read them.

So I'm trying wherever I can to slowly replace all my paperbacks with hardbacks. - That's good. The durability is key. - And you can find a lot of library discards in-- - You really can. Yes, you really can. I have been blessed to do that. A lot of my junior classics and junior fiction used to be library books.

- Yeah, me too. - So we don't have to go all in at the very beginning, our collection. So if your children are preschoolers, your library might be two or three low bookcases and maybe a bin of picture books. And that would be a great way to start. And like Jennifer said, a beginning reference section of a dictionary and history and science encyclopedias, an atlas, and maybe an anthology or a book of books that gives you suggestions of other things to do.

So here's another thing. Who gets to contribute to your library? Do you have books that your children wanted when they were little? Have you folded your kids' books into your library or is this mostly books that you choose for certain reasons? - So there were a few of my children's favorites that I have decided not to lend out because I want to be able to give them the seed for their library when they form their own families.

So I have kept back a few, you know, a couple of favorites of theirs, but I've also over the years helped them build their library. So my daughters who are at college, I've been helping them buy some things that they want to read. And so they have the seed of their own libraries going already.

So yeah, both things are happening. - Yes, my girls have their bookcases in their bedrooms and they, from time to time, come back home 'cause they're grown and gone. They come back home and take an armful of their favorites. Many of the picture books that they used as children are still here at my house.

And I hope to keep them at my house for grandchildren, but I'm open to share. And some of them, I will admit, I have multiple copies of some books. - Yeah, because some of them, I let them take my grandson. I've let have some of the books, but then I promptly replaced them at home because I want to have things here.

So what are your, go ahead. - I was just gonna say, I'm in a little bit of a quandary because when I was recently in England for our 30th anniversary, I bought three picture books. They're utterly precious. One of them is by Randolph Caldecott, who Caldecott Picture Book Awards are named after.

And I don't know, I haven't quite worked my way up to loaning that one yet, but I feel like it does need to be read. So I'm in a bit of a quandary about that one. It's still sitting in my room. And then I bought two books by a French children's author that was translated into English by a poet that I really like, a children's poet.

And so those three books are sitting there in the, I don't know quite yet what I'm going to do with these. - Right. - They may not be loaned. They may be read here. - That's what I was gonna say. You could have a reading room. - Yes. - That's perfect.

So do you have standards that you, I mean, I can remember, all right, I'll just be really honest. When my girls were little, I picked their library books because I knew what I wanted them to read. I knew I wanted them to read good stuff. And so I remember when my older daughter was in about the fifth grade and she said, "Why can't I pick my books?" And I said, "Well, I mean, what do you, "I want to be sure that you're reading good things.

"And I want, you know, I want it. "I want you to be happy with your books. "And what is it that you want to read?" And she, so she showed me this paperback book. It was some Pony Club or something. And I said, "Do you think that you will like that?" And she said, "Oh, I want to check this one out." And so I went on and picked some other ones for her, but let her take that one home.

And we got home and she disappeared immediately to her room with that book she had chosen. And she came down in about 20 minutes and she stuffed it back. We had a big basket in our living room that all the library books were supposed to stay in because it was way too easy to get them mingled with our personal books and not be able to tell the difference.

So she came back and stuffed it in the back of the library basket. And I said, "Are you done already?" Which was not beyond the pale of possibility. And she said, "No." And I said, "What's the matter?" She said, "Well, you were right. "It was not very well-written." And I said, "What do you mean?" And she said, "Well, the characters are not very fleshed out "and the story is way too predictable." And so as a fifth grader, I was pretty glad that she was able to see that.

But that brings me to this question that I have for you. What kind of standards? Do you have a little bit of everything in your library or do you really have what you consider to be the good stuff? - I mostly have the good stuff. My mom was pretty careful about what we read growing up.

And so I have a lot of Louisa May Alcott and Laura Ingalls Wilder, and I gravitated toward those more historical books anyway. But there are a few series, I will say, there are points when it's good for kids to read fast. So I have a few of those series that just help them get faster and faster at reading.

But even those are ones that I read with my kids when they were younger and so comfortable having them. Because I have limited resources to collect a library, I don't see the point of collecting junk or fluff. People can get that anywhere. I'm trying to collect the really good things that might actually disappear if we don't all pay attention.

- Yes, excellent. I love that philosophy. I love that. So as we homeschoolers who are dedicated to becoming keepers of the books and making sure that libraries continue, how do we share our books? What suggestions do you have for us? - Well, one thing, if people don't have a resource to build a library or the time, right?

I realize I'm in a time of life now where I am. - Yes, but you can. - I can, I'm no longer homeschooling all four little ones in front of me. I could not have done this back then. So back then what we did is share books with our friends and our CC community.

We did a lot of book swapping. So we would take things to community and get things at community and then return them the next week. And in the age where you can't depend on the main libraries anymore, I still think it's a good way to go because we all have some number of books in our home and we can share them through our CC communities and through our church groups and through our neighborhoods.

So I think that's a fine way to start if you don't have the resources to build a gigantic library. - That's good and that's very encouraging because a lot of us, that's where we are. That's where we are. So that's a good way to start small and to grow as you're able.

I love that. All right. You have told us why it's important to keep the books. How do you think we're doing now? You mentioned that it kind of brought you up short when you noticed that people were saying there aren't as many libraries, there aren't as many books at the library, there aren't as many good books at the library and it made you want to buy all the books.

What's the status report? How are we doing now? - Well, it's interesting. I think we might be doing slightly better. Physical bookstores experienced a lot of growth in the years of COVID and after, which is an interesting phenomenon, I think. And usually when I go to my local bookstores, there are a lot of people in there browsing.

We like to touch books and flip through them before we buy them. And I'm feeling better than I did two decades ago when the e-reader was pronouncing it was going to be the thing. I think we've come around. And in fact, I just read a charming essay called "On Browsing" and just the idea that we do like to touch things.

It always made me laugh too around the years around COVID that the other stores that were growing seemed to be candle shops. - Yes, yes. - Make you want to go and smell the candles. You don't want to order candles online. So there is some tactile experience that I think is in this generation making a bit of a comeback.

So I'm encouraged. - I am too. I think there are more bookstores and more people in the stores when we go in. Our family is like yours. A good rainy Saturday was we would all go to the bookstore and scatter. And I was not above letting my voracious fast reader sit and read a book and then buy another one.

We always bought something, but I was not above letting her read something because we lived 30 minutes from the bookstore. I don't want you to be done with the book by the time we get home. - Yes. - That does not work for me on my fixed income. So we were go and browse a few hours and everybody come home with something.

And some days we would say, everybody go and come home with something you never thought you would be interested in. And that expanded our library greatly. Sometimes we got duds, but sometimes we got things that became favorites. And so try it, you'll like it, is a good way to think about it.

- Yes. And a lot of our books that started my sort of children's fiction section were ones that I did in book clubs. So all throughout homeschooling, I had book clubs for the children in our CC communities to do on a day outside of our CC day. So I have a lot of book club books.

And then the other thing I forgot to share earlier is that you and I have a friend, Heather, who used to work for CC. And Heather was always really good once she had resources to do it. She would, if she found something, a Shakespeare play that she really liked, she would buy five or eight copies of it.

And then whenever people came to her home and looked at her bookshelf, she would send them home with a book. And so that's another thing that I'm trying to do whenever I can. Some books stay in the library and some books I just let people take, so. - Oh, what a blessing.

What a blessing. And you know what? Mom's, dad's just starting out homeschooling. If you hear that and think, wow, but I can't do that. I mean, I have little kids. We're living on one income. We don't have extra money. That's something that you can grow toward. It doesn't mean you're not a good friend or a good share if that's not where you are in life.

We all start small and we grow. And that's what this whole podcast has been about, building a family library. And every library has to start somewhere. So start small, but with the idea that you are gonna build a family culture of learning as you collect your books and share your books and talk about your books with your family and in your community.

That's a great thing. Jennifer, thank you so much for sharing about your library. I know that we all wish we could go and see it, but at least you have inspired us to collect those things for ourselves. Thank you. - Yes, it's been fun. I love talking about books.

- Parents, if you are thinking, man, that sounds so good. I just want to learn more and more and I want to grow more and more and I want to be a better library collector, a better homeschooler, a better lead learner in my home. I'm not really sure how to do that.

I've got a suggestion. What you might need is our classical learning cohort. These classical learning cohorts help CC directors and tutors and parent teachers grow in their confidence and in their competence with the classical tools of learning. It will teach you to be a more confident classical educator. If you're curious about that, about how it would work or how it would work for you, you can register for a seat.

You can get information at classicalconversations.com/cohort, okay? Classicalconversations.com/cohort. It'll be awesome. Thanks, you guys. Go and build your libraries and read with your families and I'll see you next week. Bye-bye. (gentle music) you