I keep a classroom library of roughly a thousand volumes and every year it operates at a loss of books and money out of my own pocket. Over the years, I've tried various borrowing procedures, but the truth is, I want books in the hands of my students, especially the more reluctant readers, and I don't really have a lot of class time to devote to administering a tight lending system, and so I don't. I implore students not to take my books without signing them out, but somehow many, many go missing, and nobody knows where they could possibly be.
Or do they? Every now and then, a book will mysteriously turn up in my school mailbox, and I am always grateful. On the second day of school this year, a student returned a book that her brother, now a senior in high school, borrowed six years ago. I thanked her, profusely.
And so it goes. As a result, in addition to buying the latest popular books, I also try to resupply my collection on the cheap, and that's what I was doing today at our school's annual book swap, when several of the titles started to look kind of familiar. "Some of these are probably mine!" I said, only half joking, to my friend Ellen. Less than a minute later she laughed out loud and handed me a book. Sure enough-- on the inside front cover was my name.
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