Cheap Books

My kids love to read and I love to buy books for them. However, sometimes they also love to tear up their books! So instead of buying them expensive books, sometimes I buy them very cheap children's books by local publishers. I'd rather they accidentally tear up a book costing RM1.50 then one costing RM10.

Now, I love to support local and I don't like to discriminate. I often buy local magazines for myself as well because I think they're much more value for money than their foreign counterparts. However in the case of children's books its really very difficult to praise local when they are obviously not up to par. The standard of English is so poor and the books look like they have not even gone through very simple proof reading to eliminate errors. Very often there are missing words, spelling mistakes and gramatical errors. Its really appalling that such obviously poor quality childrens' books are going to print.

Here is an example taken from one of the books:

• How many animal were drinking water?
• How did the tiger died?

Can you spot the obvious mistakes? If you can't, you've probably been reading too many of these error riddled books too. Lol!

I think its totally irresponsible of the publishers to make money from the sale of such obviously poorly produced books! However at the point of writing, I'm still "supporting" these publishers by buying the cheap books and making the corrections myself. What to do? The children outgrow their little books as fast as their little shoes and clothes.

For clothes at least I have the option of buying a few good quality ones and make them wear them over and over again rather than buying dozens of cheap ones so they can wear different outfits each time. For shoes a medium range would be better because although they outgrow them very fast, we must make sure they are of a reasonable quality to support their growing feet.

For toys we also make sure they must be of a reasonable quality for safety reasons. However for books, I want to expose them to as many stories and reading materials as possible so I can't buy a few and make them read the same over and over again. So how? Tell me, should I continue to "support" these poor quality books? What do you do? What sort of books, toys and clothing do you buy for your children?