More about Bookroo: an Article, a Quiz and Review

So you remember a while back when I posted about Bookroo? I had Jane from the Bookroo team do a guest post for me, and I explained all about their subscription box.

Well I wanted to tell you a few other fun Bookroo things:

1. I also did guest post for Bookroo. It's called 3 Selfish Reasons to Read to Your Kids. I had fun writing it. :) I hope you like it. And I hope that your kids become learning zombies effortless learners.

2. Bookroo has a fun quiz I took with the kids. You have to guess which picture book is being represented by each of the minimalist posters. We did pretty good! I was super proud of myself for guessing some of the harder ones. *breathes on knuckles, polishes them on shirt*

I'll spoil this one for you. Now you'll know that it's not Runaway Bunny.

3. I got my first Bookroo box! Some people liked the previous post and subscribed through my affiliate link, so I got a free box. Thanks guys. We loved it!

We picked the 2 picture book box (instead of the box that comes with 3 board books) and we got Penguin Cha-Cha by Kristi Valiant which I had never heard of before but which is adorable (I especially love Julia's red dancing dress, which shows up at the end), and Say What? by Angela DeTerlizzi, which I had read and loved previously. In fact, we have a little paper copy of Say What?, which came free in a Cheerios box, so I could theoretically take advantage of Bookroo's policy and get a discount on my next box. But I actually like having the bigger, hardcover version, so I'm gonna keep it. I'll stick some amazon-affiliate links here in case you want to look further into the books we got:

It looks like if we had just bought these two books from Amazon, we would have paid $27.35 + shipping (because I don't have Prime and it's not more than $35). A one-time Bookroo box costs $19.99 and has free shipping. If you buy a few months in advance, the price drops even further. So, at least in this box, Bookroo is keeping their promise that the retail value of the books will always exceeds the subscription price.

I was interested to see that the books we got didn't come with dust jackets. That must be one way that Bookroo keeps costs low. I've heard friends say that they hate dust jackets. Too much fuss. Always getting torn or falling off or what have you. I like them, myself, because they help keep the book in good shape for longer. Regardless, the book is the same as it would otherwise be, and the kids didn't seem to notice. In fact, it has probably been easier for me that they didn't have jackets, because Jubilee has been requesting Say What? in bed, and she really does kind of mess up dust jackets. Since she's only two, I'll give her a pass.

I wasn't present for the Bookroo Unboxing, which is too bad. I had big plans about taking tons of photos and being like "ooh that wrapping paper is so cute." But what happened was our box arrived on a Saturday when I was gone from like noon to midnight, almost, chaperoning some of the young women in my ward (church congregation). We went to a big activity with a service project, workshops, dinner, and a dance. I have a special place in my heart for such activities, because I met Jacob at a church dance. Anyway, Jacob was at home with the kids all afternoon and evening, so they got the box and opened it up right away. I don't blame him. He said it was a great way to entertain the kids for a while, and that they had a lot of fun with it. I thought it was super cute how there was a personalized note on the inside of the box's lid. That's about all I can speak to as far as packaging. :)

If you want to look into Bookroo, here's my affiliate link. I still think it would be super adorable to have a book club centered around the Bookroo box. Put the kids on a webcam with their cousins or far-away friends who got the books and enjoy reading them to each other. Reading books to someone over webcam definitely works better if you each have a copy. :)

Bookroo book subscription: A Free Coupon and a Funny Story

Good morning, friends! Today I have something fun to share with you. Jane Tanner, one of the co-founders of Bookroo, is going to share some stories with us.

But first let me introduce Bookroo. It's a book subscription box, like Kiwi Crate or something, but instead of being filled with crafts, it's filled with books! 

all photos via Bookroo

This idea is so good. I will brag that I had the same, excellent idea once; I just didn't do a single thing about it. The Bookroo team, on the other hand, has made my dream come true.

So. You can order an ongoing subscription, or pay in advance for three or six months and get a discount. What kind of books do you get? You can choose whether you'd like to get board books or picture books. If you choose board books, you'll get a box with three board books in it. If you choose picture books, you'll get a box with two picture books in it. And, the best part, the books are wrapped up like presents. I just love that! But then, receiving gifts is one of my strongest love languages, second only to words of affirmation. :)

Anyway, Jane reached out to me about collaborating on something and I think we're kindred spirits: we adore books, we read to kids, we cheer for the BYU Cougars. No surprise then that we decided to swap guest posts on each other's blogs.

Since I had once fantasized about starting a kidlit subscription box, I asked Jane to write about "something funny or embarrassing or amazing that happened in the very earliest days of Bookroo." I wanted something to make me laugh, really, and Jane delivered. Her post starts out with the two brothers who started it all. . .

Bookroo was Kesler and Tayler’s brain child. They’d worked on a couple of entrepreneurial endeavors in the past together, and when Tayler was looking for fun ways to get new books for himself to read but couldn’t find a program he liked, he called Kesler. They batted the idea around and then realized that doing a book subscription service for children would be way more fun. And so Bookroo was born.

They shared the idea with their older brother, Chandler, and soon the three of them were having discussions about it. First, Kesler just enlisted my help with the logo, and the imagery for the site, but since reading to children was something I so passionately believed in, soon I had officially joined the Bookroo team, followed shortly thereafter by Chandler’s wife Tiffany, and Tayler’s wife Becca. It was just such a FUN idea to work on! And thus our team was formed. Three brothers (or “bro-lers” as we sometimes call them since all 8 brothers in the Tanner family’s names end in -ler) and their wives, out on an adventure to make reading accessible, convenient, and affordable for parents and exciting for kids and parents alike.

Since some of us live in Utah and the rest in California, Bookroo has given us a wonderful opportunity to keep extra in touch and work together even though it’s long distance. We’ve perfected the Google Hangouts team meeting and use a number of tools to keep us coordinated throughout the week. Unfortunately, with all businesses there’s the occasional snafu, especially if you’re coordinating long distance. Probably the funniest moment thus far was when our supplier sent us the wrong book! We’d been debating between these two different books to be the last one included in the month’s shipments--they were both great books--but we’d ended up deciding to go with Book A rather than Book B. The books arrived, our Utah contingency wrapped and shipped them out, and everything was great--pictures were pouring in and people were loving the books!

Then at our Google Hangouts sync up a week later, we were talking about how things had gone that month. Someone mentioned the books we’d sent out at which point Kesler said, “Wait, I thought we sent out Book A.” It came out that we had in fact sent Book B, because that’s the book that the supplier had sent us! The Utah crew had assumed the California crew switched the order on them, and the California crew assumed the right books had shown up! To this day, we still aren’t sure how the supplier even knew we were considering Book B, and why they thought it was ok to switch our order, but we had a good laugh about it, and are glad that we liked both books so much!

To us, Bookroo is an exciting opportunity for families--both ours and yours. Bookroo boxes unite us behind a common mission--to improve the world and the minds and imaginations of children through reading! Come check out our site, and start sending Bookroo boxes to the children in your life--it’s an investment in their future!

Thanks, Jane! I definitely chuckled about "bro-lers" and about the mix-up!

Time for coupons and special offers, yes? If you order through my Bookroo booster link, you can get 15% off with the code BOOKS2LOVE . What's in it for me? If you order through the links in this post then I get a commission. So hey, thanks! Books all around!

How does checkout work? (updated 2/1/2018)

1. Click over to Bookroo. 
2. Select whether you want board books or picture books. 
3. Select how long in advance you want to pay. The longer you go, the cheaper it is per box. One month prepay is 17.99/box. Three month prepay is 16.66/box. Six month prepay is $16.33/box 12 month prepay is 15.99/box. Shipping is $5.
4. Fill in shipping info, billing info, and create a login to track your orders.

Hooray! Surprise book presents once a month!

But what if I already have a lot of books and I get one that I already own? No problem; send a photo of you giving the book to a friend and get $5 off your next box. Bam!

But what if I can't decide between picture books and board books? No problem; tell them and they'll switch off between the two, month by month. So easy!

More info and FAQ's on the Bookroo site of course, those were just my two big questions.

To me, Bookroo sounds like the perfect thing for grandparents to send to grandkids. (Feel free to send them my post via email. Copy and paste: http://www.evereadbooks.com/2015/08/bookroo.html)

It also sounds like the perfect thing to gift at a baby shower. 

It also sounds like the perfect way to get cousins in a book club together. Sign both families up for Bookroo and then have a little Skype session once a month. Baby book club. I'm dying of the cuteness.

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Ok, I think that's all I've got. What questions do you have? Of everyone you know, who would be most excited to learn about Bookroo? Share this post with that person and you'll bring a little more "hey that's cool" into her day.

UPDATE: I've received and reviewed a Bookroo box! Check out my thoughts here.