Adventures in Books at the Thrift Store

I’m a big fan of thrift stores, especially when looking for books for kids and household items. Sometimes I get really lucky and find tons of stuff but other times I walk away empty handed. Now you may ask yourself why I would be sharing this with you. 

Well yesterday I went to a thrift store and of course I headed straight to the book stacks first. As I started looking I saw several books that caught my attention. I ended up picking up eight books for the bargain price of $9.50.  I was totally stoked. I mean I can’t usually buy one book for under $10 let alone eight of them.

What did I pick up you say? Well here’s the list:

For me: Eyes of Crow by Jeri Smith-Ready; Vampire Kisses: The Beginning by Ellen Schreiber; Heavenly by Jennifer Laurens and Van Alen Legacy by Melissa De La Cruz

For my 9-year old: Fudgemania, Superfudge and Tales of Fourth Grade Nothing all by Judy Blume

For my teen daughter: Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins

Now that last one is where the adventure comes in, not so much that it happened while at the store itself but what happened later when I gave it to my daughter. My daughter is a fan of Contemporary YA Fiction so when I saw Anna and the French Kiss I knew I had to get it for her. I’ve heard great things about it and the companion book, Lola and the Boy next door.  But anyway, on to what happened; I didn’t flip thru any of the books while at the store. (In hindsight, I really need to do that.) So I pick up my daughter from school and head on over to my son’s elementary school to wait for him to get out 15 minutes later. While waiting I pull out my stash of books and hand her the Anna book.

As she starts flipping through it the first thing she notices is that a whole chapter has been taped up with that magic tape that is used for gift-wrapping. We both think that’s kinda weird but, whatever. I help her get the tape off and discover that it’s chapter fourteen. We both flip thru chapter fourteen to see if there are any pages missing but there aren’t, which is good. However, we notice something else that’s…I don’t even know how to put it…strange?! Weird?! Makes you go, hmmm?! What is it you ask? Well someone has taken the time to white-out several words and in some cases, whole passages. Of course this makes us wonder what could be so bad about these words that are whited out? And it's not just chapter fourteen but now she notices that it happens throughout the whole book. 

My daughter starts trying to scrape off some of the white-out without tearing the paper because of course we want to see what is soooo terrible. Something must be terrible because someone took the time to white-out so much of the book. To our surprise and frankly our giggles and then right out laughter and indignation it is words such as bollocks, ass, god, blimey, the hell, omg, oh my god. It’s not so much that we’re saying people should or shouldn’t use these words but we found it completely odd that someone would buy a book called Anna and the FRENCH KISS and then go censor it. I mean if you can’t handle some of these words WHY, OH WHY are you reading a book with this type of title? It just doesn’t makes sense to me at all.   

Of course now I’m going to have to buy this book at a regular book store because my daughter really wants to read the “uncensored” version. So what the “white-out junkie” really accomplished was us buying Anna and the French Kiss again. Muahahahaha.

Oh and obviously I had to call Jaime right away and let her know what we’d found and she, too found it so funny that she suggested I write a post about it. 


We'd love to know what you all think of this? Let us know in the comments :)  

Here's a cover of Anna and the French Kiss and a synopsis from the inside flap:

Anna is happy in Atlanta. She has a loyal best friend and a crush on her coworker at the movie theater, who is just starting to return her affection. So she's not too pleased when her father decides to send her to a boarding school in Paris for her senior year. But despite not speaking a word of French, Anna meets some cool new friends, including the handsome Étienne St. Clair, who quickly becomes her best friend. Unfortunately he's taken--and Anna might be, too.

Will a year of romantic near - misses end with the French kiss she's been waiting for?

You want to buy your own copy of Anna and the French Kiss you can do so at Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Book Depository or ask for it at your local bookstore. 


UPDATE: For those of you wondering...here's a sample page of what the inside of this book looks like: