I like old books, and I can't deny....

   You other bibli'philes can't deny.... Okay. *clearing throat* Got that out of my system. 

   SilverDad, Valor, and I went to Goodwill yesterday. I found a charming Egermeier's Bible Story Book, and was about to give up on the rest of their book section when I rounded the last corner to see a My Bookhouse set in excellent condition. Yes, please! Both were originally published in the 1920's. (Well, the earliest volumes of My Bookhouse were anyway, not the whole series.)

   There's a good reason the Egermeier's has been a popular children's Bible for almost 100 years. It includes many more stories than most children's Bibles, it doesn't sugar coat the Word, and it doesn't talk down to the kids. It's a good piece of children's literature in it's own right. Today's children's Bibles sound like lifeless, basal readers in comparison. (Yes, we own those too. Yes, I'm biased.)  I also like that the illustrations don't look like they're out of a comic strip.

   The My Bookhouse series Is a delicious collection of quality children's literature. Volume 1 is nearly all nursery rhymes with a some short stories mingled throughout. Each volume takes it up a notch in literary maturity until you're reading A Boy in Russia, Down by the River Avon, and The Moon Landing in volume 12. I had a picture of the great illustrations and a table of contents for one of the volumes, but they disappeared while trying to write this post. If I reload them they'll be stuck at the top of the post. :P (My kingdom for a mobile friendly Blogger...)

     On the way home I made my third serious attempt at couponing. The first stop produced two bigger boxes of breaded fish fillets, two packages of cheese sticks, and two tubes of cleaning wipes for $12 + tax. That was kinda fun. Then we loaded $155 of groceries (that's regular prices) into our cart, and giggled at the screen when the price just kept dropping for sales and doubled coupons. My final total was $80 including tax, and we came home with real food like frozen veggies, rice, cheese, cream cheese, beans, bread, tilapia, cereal, razors, toothbrushes, and more. My outright freebies were 2 gallons of milk, 3 deoderant sticks, and 3 bottles of hand soap. I'm certainly not a professional, but the newspapers have more than paid for themselves. And it is kind of fun.