As an always avid reader I was keen to encourage my children to discover for themselves the joy to be found within books. I read stories to them from an early age, filling the shelves in their nursery bedrooms with beautiful picture books. Favourites were revisited so often I could recite the words.
Once they had mastered reading for themselves, this habit I had nurtured proved expensive to feed. Living in a rural village, visits to a public library required yet another car journey, and time fitted in around their already packed schedule of organised activities. Bookshops were visited only rarely; the choices made there too often not satisfying their still developing preferences.
Discovering The Book People catalogue (browsed in paper form, back in the day) enabled me to purchase numerous box sets of both fiction and non-fiction at a price that could be managed regularly. My children’s updated shelves soon filled with: Horrible Histories and Geographies; dinosaur and science books; fictional adventures featuring Alex Rider, Percy Jackson and many more favourites. I also purchased sets of Booker prize shortlists, or classic author collections, for myself.
Although by last year I hadn’t ordered from The Book People in quite some time, when I read that the company had filed for administration I felt a sadness for the loss to current parents of young children with voracious reading habits.
It was therefore pleasing when Levi from Books2Door contacted me last month asking if I would be interested in a collaboration. They would send me a box set of my choice from their online site in exchange for me writing about the product and their service. On visiting Books2Door I discovered a wealth of box sets and other tempting offerings – just the sort of books my children enjoyed throughout their formative years. After consulting with them – now in their twenties but still, thankfully, reading – we decided that The Witcher series was most likely to be of interest. I agreed to take it for inspection.
The box set arrived – cellophane wrapped and packed in a sturdy box for posting – within a couple of days of ordering. The slip case in which the books are temptingly placed is strong and has attractive artwork.
The books themselves are quality paperbacks – the same paper and font as available from other retailers (we compared them to another copy of the first book in the series that my daughter already has on her shelves). My children were pleased that the cover art is the original and not the TV show versions.
While I am aware that discounted books take business from high street bookshops and cut the revenue authors receive per sale, they do enable parents to provide their children with complete book collections that may not otherwise be affordable, or indeed matching (a bane when series are purchased individually over months or years).
My grown children still reread the books they most enjoyed as young adults, time and again – their boxsets have proved excellent value.
Books2Door is a company I can happily recommend. Thank you, Levi, for sending me The Witcher series gratis.
Website: https://www.books2door.com/
The Witcher boxset: click here
neverimitate 