While pregnant with our first child, I wanted to find something special to give to my husband. We received gifts for baby and gifts for me, but what about something special he could share with baby? Then it came to me, the perfect gift for a Dad who wants to raise readers and my favorite Father’s Day Gift: Tim’s favorite childhood books.
Why Books?
My husband and I both come from families of avid readers, where curling up in an armchair with a good book with a piece of heaven. We both studied English in college, so we’d have an excuse to read more books and talk about them. Tim and I hoped to raise kids with that same passion for reading, so we started a kid’s library early on.
Creating My Favorite Father’s Day Gift
I secretly called up my mother-in-law and asked her to please send me a list of Tim’s favorite childhood books. Luckily, she saved some of his favorites and graciously shared them for our collection. Others I found at bookstores or online (although online shopping wasn’t so popular back then). These included two books I’d never read before – Have You Seen a Giraffe Hat? and The Ghost Eye Tree, along with classics like Dr. Suess.
I remember Tim’s reaction the day I gave him his gift, his face full of surprise and delight. While the gift came from me, it really came from his mother as well. She gave him the gift of sweet memories and a mother’s enduring love. Today, nearly 10 years later, he still reads these same books with our kids.
How to Make a Father’s Day Gift of Books
This is such a fun gift to put together and made much easier with online shopping!
- List His Favorite Books. You can do this in secret by contacting a loved one who would have read to him as a child. If this isn’t practical, find a way to ask him. Chances are, he won’t suspect that you’re up to anything.
- Narrow Down the List. If the list is long, don’t feel like you have to find every book. In fact, you could save the list and make this an annual gift, including chapter books as the kids grow older.
- Find Your Books. This is a bit like a treasure hunt sometimes, especially if the books are out of print or less well-known. You can visit your local book shops and thrift stores and often find affordable treasures. You can also go online and use AbeBooks, Alibris, or Thrift Books to search book stores around the country and the globe. Books on these sites are often in great condition and inexpensive. Don’t forget Amazon, too, where free shipping often saves your bank account!
- Wrap Your Gift. You can get creative here if you’d like. Consider wrapping the gifts in a receiving blanket if he is a new dad or have your kids make some bookends and tie them all together with ribbon. Maybe you put them on a bookshelf in your kid’s room with a bow and have him find them.
This is also an awesome new dad gift and what I gave to Tim on his first “Father’s Day,” when our daughter arrived. Maybe it was providence, but our daughter loved to listen to us read to her from infancy. She calmed down to the sound of us reading long before she could even enjoy the pictures. Today, at nine, she devours books and her brothers follow her example. It’s easy to see why this is my favorite Father’s Day Gift!
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