Ownership Papers

If you've ever won a book as a school prize it probably came with a book plate stuck inside the cover or on the title page.

I won such a prize for poetry writing at my sixth form college, but as I was infamous for not turning up for classes I missed the assembly when this book was handed out. I was then asked to pick up the book from the teacher's common room, but I just never got round to it. The committee who awarded the prize was decidedly miffed and withdrew it totally. Ha-Ha, what a chequered past!

Well, I do regret my indifference. Most of all I regret the book plate that was in the book (a friend got a prize for a science project and so I know for a fact that there were plates in the prizes).   

I do like book plates. What a treat when I find one in a secondhand book. They're as good as those faded inscriptions: "To our darling grandson, Robert, from your grandparents, David and Emily. 1924."

Anyway, the whole point of this post is to point the way to a brilliant website that has beautiful book plates you can print out, cut out and paste in your books.

I found out about this website (My Home Library) while doing research for my article on libraries. Children's author Anne Fine wrote this article about how, when she was Children's Laureate, she set up this scheme which encourages kids to start their very own libraries.

I love the idea and I have my eye on half-a-dozen of the plates on the site. Do check them out. They are divided into larger plates, medium plates, smaller plates and coloured plates, and are designed by people like Quentin Blake, Posy Simmonds, Tony Ross, Mick Inkpen, Helen Oxenbury and other book illustrators. There's even a bookplate by Joan Aiken! And a whole section drawn by cartoonists like Steven Appleby. Very, very cool!

Here are some links to other sites with book plates you can print out and use:

Reading Planet

Book Hive

Activity Village

A book plate drawn by Mick Inkpen, author and illustrator of the Kipper and Wibbly Pig books.

Comments

[shida tja]

dear daphne,

i came across yr online article abt second-hand bkstore on 'the star' site (btw, they spelled yr name wrongly at the end of the piece).

i'm 30+ goin-on-60, was never much of a contender in the whole kl rat race scene anyways, contemplating a small business venture somewhere in a more sedate township (e.g. 'Taiping').

always known it was gonna be either a flower-shop or a bkstore or... what the heck, both! thought abt it some more and decided on the bkstore idea since i reckon that gd writings are the next best thing to sliced wholemeal smothered with strawberry jam on top.

there was this bkstore that i used to frequent during my college days in WA state where the books are stacked up to the ceiling and u can buy them at a lower than low price and sell them back at abt half the price that u paid them for. convenient, no?
that is exactly what i have in mind. i do have my own collection plus some others given by ex-colleagues. i am also planning to knock on doors for old, forgotten books for a fair sum (preferably by the bulk).

whaddaya think? i think it's a tremendous project. of course, hubby is goin, 'we're gonna starve'.

(btw - would you have any old bks to spare?)