Library Books

As most homeschoolers know, the library is a great resource of learning.  We can read books without having to spend money on buying the book, which is a great money saver.  But is it right to feel guilty to not read a book that we have checked out?  I didn't think about this much until I read another blogger that was having those feelings.

I have checked out books numerous times that have never been read.  Sometimes I run out of time, and sometimes I just don't have the time.  Sometimes I just don't want to read it after I picked out the book, perhaps because I checked it out on impulse.  The problem is, I feel guilty for it.  I feel guilty for using the library's resources, and I feel like I let myself down.  Well, I'm not going to feel that way anymore.  It's just silly. 

The girls have no problem checking out many, many books.  Sometimes they check out the same book more than once, and still don't get around to reading it.  I used to try and curb their book-checking enthusiasm by limiting how many books they could get, but then I realized that I was limiting their access to something that might interest them in a week or two.  Unschooling is about giving them easy access to their many interests, and that can't happen if the book isn't here to read.

After I started letting them check out as many books as we could carry without dragging the bags on the ground, I found that they often did get to those extra books and that they were worth checking out.  I would watch the library book piles, lamenting the fact that certain books weren't getting touched, but by the end of the check-out period most books did indeed get looked at and even read. 

I think that my frugal self was equating mega-book-borrowing with being wasteful, and that is just fallacy.  I'm letting them check out as many books as the library will allow and I'm letting them enjoy it.