Ever since she was a child, Peterborough resident Meaghan Glover visited each and every Friends of the Library book sale with her mother.

Today, she gets to bring her two kids with her to the biannual event.

“I don’t even remember when we first started coming, but I was a kid just about their age,” said Glover. “So, every time they do it, I bring mine as well.”

The sale, which took place last Friday and Saturday at the Peterborough Public Library, had an inventory of hundreds of books including multiple tables full of children’s books. Glover has maintained the importance of reading with her kids throughout their childhoods. When they aren’t practicing other hobbies such as drawing, her kids like to read their collection of books and listen to audiobooks when going to bed.

Glover’s efforts have proved fruitful with her children, who are now both avid readers.

Her son Rory, 7, said “reading gives you a lot of experience and also gives you a lot of notice that people do a lot in life as well.” 

Her daughter Siobhan, 9, is also a big reader. “I love the cool pictures, and it can show you how much you love your parents, something like this book” she said, holding a copy of Robert Munsch’s Love You Forever.

It wasn’t just these two young readers who showed up to the event, the Friends of the Library team’s entire children’s section had been selling well all day.

Volunteer Marie Olver, 85,—who is celebrating 25 years with Friends of the Library—held down the children’s section Friday morning, and noticed a big audience. 

“[Parents] are looking for things to read with their kids and lots of kids are still reading,” she observed. “When I started, we would have maybe a fourth of this floor, now we have a dozen times more books.”

And it isn’t just young readers getting out to buy the books.

Mia Thompsin, 16, found a huge selection of books aimed at an older audience. 

“They had a really big section for Indigenous fiction and non-fiction books which was really cool cause I don’t see that anywhere,” she noticed. “They also had a section on LGBTQ which was getting kind of bare already.” She even saw a complete Harry Potter box set for $10.

Thompsin ended up purchasing a copy of Thomas King’s 2012 novel The Inconvenient Indian and even found a vinyl record, ABBA’s 1981 album The Visitors, both priced at a dollar a piece.

With the basis being books, the room had numerous tables laid out that had several genres including inspiration and well-being, crafts and hobbies, and even a table full of erotica. The many boxes of overstock had already been emptied by the end of the first day.

According to sale committee volunteer, June Lamoureux, the sale dates back to 1986, rumoured to have been started as a bake sale.

“Eventually it evolved into the idea that people who had books that they were no longer using would donate them and they would be sold then the money would be handed over to the library for extra funds, usually for programming,” she said.

30 years later, the sale consists of 30 volunteers that have a weekly meeting where they organize the hundreds of books donated to them based on genre and condition. This October’s sale saw the addition of DVDs and CDs, which were a big seller, according to Lamoureux.

The sale has proven to be a huge success to the community, accumulating over $800,000 to the library. Some new additions that took advantage of the earnings were new outdoor chess and checker boards installed this past March. 

“It is quite interesting how many books come in and how many books get sold—I counted last month ... and we had 406 bankers' boxes of books, with more coming,” said Lamoureux.

Under numerous tables, these bankers’ boxes were nowhere to be found, considering they had already sold through large quantities of their stock. Many parents could be seen looking through novels while their kids searched the many racks of picture books which sold out fast. 

“We have a lot of retired teachers, and I think that we all recognize that the ability to read and write is a good sign post for your future success in life,” said Lamoureux. “If you don’t have those skills, it is pretty hard to make your way with a good career and post-secondary education if that is what you are pursuing.” 

She adds that the sale gives the opportunity to buy children's books at a “very reasonable rate,” while also raising money for local programs that teach younger generations about reading and library practices. The practice of borrowing and returning books is important knowledge in itself apart from fundamental reading skills.

Between Friday and Saturday, the sale accumulated $12,518, with $1,961 of the total coming from children’s books.

The Friends of the Library sale happens over a weekend every six months at the Peterborough Public Library, placing the next sale around April 2026.