Tamara Panowicz enters the tent of the Osterhout Free Library’s annual book sale with a strategy.
“I generally go towards the fiction section first, just because those are the books I typically read the most,” she said. “We like to kind of take a wide approach, we look at the boxes, we look at everything before we go in and make our selections.”
Long tables and full boxes of books, DVDs, CDs and games await this week at the Friends of the Osterhout Free Library’s annual book sale in Wilkes-Barre - and a little bit of cash can go a long way.
We asked a few patrons and volunteers what they could do with $20 under the tent.
“At one dollar per book, I’d get 20 books,” Panowicz said. “I think I could stretch it all the way for sure.”
Wednesday was children’s day at the sale. Shoppers could fill a bag with children’s books for $5. Tent sale chair Linda Kubiak said she would use $20 to get four bags of children’s books, or on any other day, spend her time in a different section.
“My favorite is mysteries, cozy mysteries like Murder, She Wrote type stuff,” Kubiak said. “I would probably hit a lot of the mystery paperbacks, because then you can get 20 paperback books.”
The book sale is one of the biggest fundraisers of the year for the Friends of the Osterhout Free Library. Kubiak said they sold more than 27,000 books over the course of the week last year and presented the library with a check for $35,500.
“We’re hoping to get over that this year,” Kubiak said.
Sherry Emershaw of Dallas was carrying a basket of hardcover history books on Wednesday afternoon, debating whether or not to take all of them home. It was her second trip to the sale throughout the course of the week.
“I spent $24 here on Saturday…that’s still less than the price of one bestseller book up at Barnes and Noble,” she said. “It’s very much worth it.”
Emershaw goes straight to the history section at any sale. She’s always looking for a new book on George Washington.
“I go right to the biography and history table immediately,” she said.
The Tent Book Sale runs until Saturday, June 15. On the last day, visitors can fill a bag for $5 or a box for $10 from 9:30-11:30 a.m. The full schedule is on the Osterhout Free Library website.
