I was recently gifted with a stack of vintage books that were going to be thrown out if I didn’t want them. They had been sitting on a shelf for several years, unused due to rips and tears, broken spines and covers and incredibly boring content. Picture the “See Jane. See Jane run.” type of thing and you’ve got it right. Add to that the blatant stereotypes- Daddy has a job and Mommy cooks and cleans…in every single story and the complete lack of multiculturalism and you can understand why these books were bound for the recycling bin (can you recycle book covers though? I don’t even know).
I didn’t want to throw them out but I definitely don’t have the storage for a bunch of books that I’m never going to use and no one else wanted them. So I’m repurposing them. I’ve made some cute cards out of them, and I have some ideas for other things to try as well. After being raised to take good care of books (I still remember a school librarian giving a VERY long lecture on washing your hands before even touching a library book) it feels very strange to cut the pages. Still, I’m enjoying making treasures out of would be trash.
Now if only I could figure out something to do with the bag full of rubber ducks that I “rescued” from the local thrift store…
Lay off the books 