Gently used books are being sold and wrapped in brown paper with a brief sentence aimed to stir curiosity through text rather than soley judging the cover.
The Little Brown Book company was dreamed up by Prince Rupert’s Emma Payne as part of her university assignment. Payne is in her fourth year of the Bachelor of Commerce in Entrepreneurial Management at Royal Roads University.
With only $150 to spend, she hopes to break even for the assignment, but the real goal is to raise money for the breakfast program at Charles Hays Secondary School.
“I thought it would be a good idea to do for funding for the breakfast program just because it was a program that I had used in high school and its long running but they’re always looking for funding,” Payne said.
She has collected more than 100 donated books, wrapped and written either a single sentence to describe the book inside for the teaser addition, or with the mystery addition, she’s sorted the books into four categories: adult, young adult, middle grade and children.
“When I’m wrapping them sometimes I stumble on one, and I think ‘Oh, I love that one!’ It feels good because then you can share it with someone,” she said.
Payne launched her social media campaign last week, and she sold books at the Last Minute Market on Saturday Sept. 2.
She will be selling books for $10 each for the next two Saturdays on Sept. 9 and 16. The market is at the Moose Hall every Saturday from 9 a.m. until 12:30 p.m.