Places NOT to Leave Books...

As a language arts teacher, I have a large classroom library that the kids can choose from to check out to use for their reading homework. In the beginning of the school year, the parents sign a form that says if their child loses, destroys, or otherwise makes the book useless to me, they will replace it. They can give me an identical book, pay me the cash to replace it, or they can donate a similar book to my library as long as I approve the transaction.

This has worked really well. I lost only one book (that I know of, they might have stolen it off the shelf so I didn't have a record of them having it) my first year, and I lost about 15 books my second year. It's really annoying to lose books, because I buy them with my own money (mostly used, and you can get a great deal at my public library... $.25 each for the juvenile books, but as I have over 1,000, it was still very expensive to get set up).

This past year the kids had to replace quite a few books, and they had to because of strange reasons.

One little brother helped his big sister by pouring his apple juice into the book. That book was so amazingly smelly. It smelled like wine.

Another little brother colored the book for my student.

Another's dog ate it. My student brought me the tiniest sliver of the old book, giggling like a fiend, to show me. I was like... what??

The strangest situation this year was with one of my expensive books... Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. I had several copies in paperback, but this was my hardback. One of my students who always was checking out books borrowed it, but it wasn't he who returned it... it was an informer, the type of student that makes life easier as they help you figure out what happened.

This student wasn't allowed to read the Harry Potter books. His mother didn't like them, but since all his friends were reading them, he had to as well. So he borrowed them from me, and hid them before getting home. Now, this might not be so bad, but he didn't choose a wise hiding place. He chose a bush at his bus stop.

One of my other students found it, the night after it rained. As you can guess, the book didn't fare so well.

When I contacted his mother, I found out that he wasn't supposed to be reading them at all.

Oops. Well, that's why I encouraged the parents to check with their students, to make sure they know what they're reading and to make sure it works for them as a family. He was doing his reading log on Harry Potter, so if she had been actually reading the reading log as she signed it, she would have known what he was reading.

Anyway, he brought me a brand new copy, and promptly asked to check it out. I said, ask your mother.