Going to a Book Sale? Don't Forget to Take Your Children with You

I buy and sell used books for a living. When my wife and I go trekking for books, particularly to sales, we take the next generation with us. While my wife and I and our twelve-year-old son fan out in different directions to pick out books, our fourteen-year-old looks after our three-year-old daughter. Since the first few minutes of these sales are critical as far as getting the best books, we do much better when the whole family is involved.

Coming home from one of these sales with a load of books is like coming home from grandma's house after Christmas. When we get home, we open the boxes of "presents," and sort the books by category. Every so often one of us holds up an especially great find for the rest of us to see.

Occasionally, however, there's a piece of coal in the stocking, a book picked up by mistake. Sometimes, it may be a beautiful book with a illustration missing that we hadn't noticed in the rush of the sale. Last Fall, following one of the best book sales in the Mohawk Valley, I was stuck with not just one, but with six books that I didn't think I could ever sell.

The six books were part of a religious, juvenile series called Jungle Doctor by Paul White. They were about a missionary doctor in Africa. Although some had interesting covers, they looked outdated and unsalable.

"Who bought these?" I asked.

My twelve-year-old son, David, confessed to buying them. In fact, he was quite proud of his purchase. Ordinarily, I don't have to worry about the books David picks out. Although young, he is well read. he also knows how to appraise a book's condition, to check whether or not it's a book club edition, and, in most instances, he can identify whether or not it's a first edition.

However, as an even better read adult, with an M.A. in English and a better knowledge of the used book trade, I figured I still knew more than he did and that he had made a mistake.

"I don't think we should have bought these books," I remonstrated. "They'll never sell." I was so sure they wouldn't sell that when I put them on the shelf, I priced them at exactly what I paid for them. I figured that eventually I would have to lower the price and sell them at a loss.

Last week, a new customer visited us, and the inevitable happened. She had hardly arrived when she asked, "Do you have any Jungle Doctor books by Paul White?" I'm sure she must have noticed the surprise in my voice when I answered yes.

She was thrilled that we had some. She had enjoyed reading them as a child and had been looking for them for years. She bought all six and would have bought more.

Afterward, I apologized to my son. At future sales I will, of course, pay closer attention to my son's opinion on what we should and should not buy. I earned nothing on the sale of those six Jungle Doctor books, but I learned several lessons. I learned that I don't know as much as I think I do. (How often have I had to learn that one!) I learned how to eat crow and say I am sorry to a child. I learned humility. I also learned that even though a second edition of a book may not be as valuable as a first edition, the same is not true of a second generation--second edition if you will--bookseller.

Note: The Jungle Doctor series, written by Paul White, contains twenty books. They have been translated into 107 languages and have recently been reprinted in paperback format. Paul White also produced a Jungle Doctor comic book series, which have sold over a half million copies in Australia, Paul White's native country, and another half million elsewhere.

This article was first published in BookQuote in 1994.