Event Returning July 10-14—

Annual Book Sale Will Celebrate 35 Years

By Kendra Bobowick

Filled with the smell of well-thumbed pages, Reed Intermediate School’s gymnasium, cafeteria and main lobby are crammed with books awaiting the annual sale beginning this weekend.

“Newtown loves to read,” said past coordinator Joanne Zang, who started the sale 35 years ago.

From July 10 to 14, the Friends of the C.H. Booth Library will hold its 35th annual book sale. Last year’s gross of roughly $100,000 is this year’s goal, said 2010 sale coordinator Denise Kaiser. Hustling through the lobby and down the cafeteria steps, she waved an arm toward wall-to-wall tables filled neatly with nonfiction books, spine up and categorized for the gardeners, hobbyists, law majors and others to peruse the alphabetized stacks.

Stepping away from the nonfiction and media sales, Ms Kaiser crossed the lobby for the gymnasium’s array of single, double, and in some cases triple copies of books from chick-lit, or ladies entertainment literature including author Janet Evanovich’s collection, to Oprah’s picks, dramas, classics, mystery, science fiction, short stories, and all else. Author’s names jumped from the paperbacks: Edith Wharton, Oscar Wilde, Jules Verne and his title topping many reading lists, 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea. On an adjacent table sat Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace.  

Greeting 15-year volunteer Julie Starkweather, she admitted, “I love the money we make for the library.” All proceeds from the annual sale go to the library programming. Ms Starkweather has always loved the library, she said.

“It’s often a favorite childhood memory,” she said. “A lot of us want kids to start with an exceedingly good background in reading,” she added, looking across the room at fellow volunteers getting ready for this weekend’s big opening.

Unpacking boxes of book donations for this year’s sale, Ms Zang recalled the first book sale, started with just one table of books set up outside C.H. Booth Library. It earned $35.

“And we were very happy!” she said. The sale expanded to a tent behind the library, and eventually relocated to the former Bridgeport Hall (now Newtown Municipal Center) in Fairfield Hills. Both women thank Reed Principle Sharon Epple and Elissa Gellis, who directs the summer school programs there. The women have been cooperative in sharing the school’s space since the sale moved into the air-conditioned school building five years ago.

“It just gets bigger every year,” Ms Zang admitted. “There are more and more books, and the quality has improved.” She and Ms Kaiser are especially proud of how the children’s selection has grown.

“We don’t really sell them. We rent them,” she said, meaning many of the books sold one year tend to be donated to the sale on a following year. “They come back,” she said, having watched her own daughter’s books sell one year, the resurface years later, again for sale.

With a facility in place for their sale, and community support from local businesses as the sale continues, organizers now make an appeal for storage space. Ms Kaiser said they need a place to keep the books before the sale starts each year.

The 35th Annual Friends of Booth Library Book Sale will open Saturday, July 10, at 9 am. Special numbered admission tickets will go on sale at 7 am that morning. Saturday’s hours continue to 5 pm, and admission is $5 that day only.

The sale will continue on Sunday, July 11, also 9 am to 5 pm. It continues on Monday and Tuesday, July 12-13, from 9 am to 7 pm each day (books will be half price on Monday, and $5 per bag on Tuesday). Any remaining books will be free on Wednesday, July 14, when the school will be open from 9 am until noon.

Visa and MasterCard are accepted. For additional information, visit CHBoothLibrary.org or BookSaleFinder.com.