Last verified May 2026 · Original research by Josh Eldred
Where to Donate Children’s Books in Albuquerque
If you have children’s books you need to get rid of — whether it is a single bag of board books or a full bedroom worth of picture books, chapter books, and YA novels — the New Mexico Literacy Project accepts them all. Every format, every age range, every condition. I am Josh Eldred, and I run NMLP out of my warehouse at 5445 Edith Blvd NE in Albuquerque. I have two kids myself. I understand the accumulation.
Here is what I take: picture books (hardcover and softcover), board books (yes, even the chewed ones), early readers, leveled readers, chapter books, middle grade fiction and nonfiction, young adult novels, graphic novels and manga aimed at younger readers, activity books, coloring books, educational workbooks, Spanish-language and bilingual children’s books, and children’s nonfiction of every kind — science, history, biography, nature, reference, you name it. If it was written for someone between the ages of zero and eighteen, I want it.
You do not need to sort anything. You do not need to separate the valuable from the ordinary. You do not need to pull out the damaged copies. Just put them all in bags or boxes — or leave them on the shelves and I will load them myself — and I handle the rest. Every children’s book that comes through my warehouse gets hand-sorted. The collectible titles get listed individually. The good reading copies go back out into the community. The damaged copies go to my paper recycler. Nothing lands in the landfill.
You have two options for getting children’s books to me. The first is my free pickup service: call or text 702-496-4214, tell me what you have and where you are, and I will come to your home, school, or facility and load everything into my truck at no cost. The second is my 24/7 outdoor drop box at 5445 Edith Blvd NE, Unit A. It is accessible around the clock — no appointment, no interaction required. Drive up, drop the bags or boxes in the bin, and you are done. Both options are free, both are available for any quantity, and neither requires any advance sorting or condition screening on your end.
The families I hear from most often are parents whose kids have aged out of a particular stage. The toddler phase produced hundreds of board books. The elementary years generated a wall of chapter books. The middle school years left behind stacks of series fiction. By the time the youngest is in high school, there are boxes in the garage and bins in the closet that have not been opened in years. That is exactly the kind of load I pick up every week. It is the most common children’s book donation scenario I see, and the process is simple: one call, one visit, everything goes.
Picture Books
Picture books are the backbone of children’s literature and, by volume, the single largest category of children’s books I receive as donations. There is a reason for this. If you read three picture books a night to your child from age one to age six — which is a fairly standard bedtime routine in reading households — that is roughly 1,095 readings per year. Over five years, that is 5,475 readings. Even if you rotate heavily and visit the library regularly, most families accumulate somewhere between 100 and 400 picture books during the early childhood years. Multiply that by two or three kids and the numbers get large quickly.
The picture books that come through my warehouse represent the full range of what American families read to their children. I see enormous quantities of the modern classics — the Mo Willems Elephant and Piggie books, the Pete the Cat series, anything by Eric Carle, Sandra Boynton’s board-book-to-picture-book catalog, Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler’s collaborations (The Gruffalo, Room on the Broom), and the steady-state perennials like Goodnight Moon, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Brown Bear Brown Bear, and Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. I also see the seasonal waves: Berenstain Bears in large sets, Dr. Seuss collections that parents bought as boxed sets, and the various Disney, Pixar, and franchise tie-in picture books that follow every animated film release.
What I do with donated picture books depends entirely on the individual copy. Most picture books — the vast majority — are good reading copies with moderate wear. These go back into circulation through my community partners: APS Title I schools, after-school programs, school reading programs, and the network of Little Free Libraries across Albuquerque. A well-loved copy of Llama Llama Red Pajama does not have meaningful resale value, but it has enormous reading value for the next child who gets it.
Then there are the picture books that surprise people with their value. First printings of Caldecott Medal and Honor winners routinely carry collector interest, especially from the 1960s through the 1990s. A first-printing Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak in the original dust jacket is one of the most sought-after children’s books in the collector market. Even later printings of Sendak’s work, if they are early enough and in good condition, hold value. First printings of Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree, Chris Van Allsburg’s The Polar Express and Jumanji, and Robert McCloskey’s Make Way for Ducklings are all examples of picture books that families sometimes have on the shelf without realizing what they are holding. my first edition identification guide covers the basics of recognizing these, but the easiest path is to donate everything and let us do the sorting.
Signed picture books are another category worth mentioning. Albuquerque’s independent bookstores — Bookworks on Rio Grande Blvd, in particular — host children’s author events throughout the year. Parents who attended these events over the years sometimes have signed copies of picture books by authors who went on to become major names. A signed Mo Willems, a signed Oliver Jeffers, a signed Jacqueline Woodson picture book — these carry collector interest well above their cover price. If you have signed children’s books from author visits, school events, or bookstore readings, they are worth donating to me rather than dropping in a Goodwill bin where no one will check.
Board Books
Board books take more physical abuse than any other format in the publishing industry. They are designed for it. The thick cardboard pages, the rounded corners, the laminated surfaces — all of it exists because the intended audience is between six months and three years old, and that audience chews, throws, dunks, sits on, and bends every book it encounters. I get asked constantly whether I accept board books that show this kind of wear. The answer is always yes.
Teething marks on the corners, stained pages from meals consumed during storytime, torn flaps on lift-the-flap books, crayon marks, sticker residue, pages that are slightly warped from bath-time encounters — all of this is normal wear for a board book that has done its job. I accept them all. The condition expectations for board books are fundamentally different from those for any other book format. A board book that looks pristine was probably never read, and a board book that looks battered served a child well for months or years. Both are welcome.
The board books I see most frequently are the ones that defined the format for the current generation of parents: Sandra Boynton’s catalog (Moo Baa La La La, Pajama Time, The Going to Bed Book), Eric Carle’s board book adaptations (The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Brown Bear Brown Bear, From Head to Toe), the Karen Katz lift-the-flap series, Priddy Books’ First 100 Words and related titles, Leslie Patricelli’s baby books, and the Baby Loves Science series by Ruth Spiro. I see these in massive quantities because every family with a toddler seems to acquire the same core set of fifteen to twenty board books, and then those books sit in a bin for years after the child ages out.
Most board books are reading copies that cycle through my community redistribution pipeline. A used copy of Goodnight Gorilla or Dear Zoo has minimal resale value but remains a perfectly functional book for the next family. Where board books get interesting from a collector standpoint is with the early printings and original editions. Sandra Boynton’s first board books, published in the early 1980s by Simon & Schuster, are different objects from the current printings — different paper stock, different color saturation, slightly different dimensions. Early Eric Carle board books, especially from the original publisher before the format was widely licensed, carry moderate collector interest. These are not common finds, but they surface in donation piles often enough that I know to look for them.
If you have a bin of board books in the closet — and I know you do, because every parent I talk to has at least one — do not throw them away. Do not feel bad about the condition. Bag them up, bring them to the drop box, or call me for a pickup. They still have life left in them, even the chewed ones.
Chapter Books and Middle Grade
The chapter book and middle grade category is where volume really explodes. A child who reads through the elementary and middle school years can consume hundreds of chapter books, and series fiction dominates this space in a way that no other segment of the book market quite matches. Magic Tree House alone runs to over sixty titles. Diary of a Wimpy Kid is at eighteen books and counting. The Warriors cat series by Erin Hunter has passed seventy volumes across its various arcs. Percy Jackson and the broader Rick Riordan universe spans dozens of titles. Dav Pilkey’s Dog Man and Captain Underpants series are perpetual favorites. Junie B. Jones, Geronimo Stilton, Wings of Fire, the Babysitters Club reissues, Ivy and Bean, the Bad Guys — the list is long, and families accumulate these series by the shelf-load.
I pick up chapter books by the hundreds. A typical family with two or three kids who were active readers will have somewhere between 200 and 500 chapter books by the time the youngest finishes middle school. Some families have more. I have picked up from homes where the children’s bookcase took up an entire wall of the playroom, and most of the titles were series chapter books acquired one or two at a time over a decade of school book fairs, birthday gifts, library sales, and bookstore trips.
The majority of these chapter books are paperbacks, and the honest truth about used children’s paperbacks is that their individual resale value is modest. A used copy of Magic Tree House #14 or Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules is a reading copy, and the market for used reading copies of mass-produced children’s paperbacks is thin. What these books have is redistribution value. Community reading programs, after-school programs, and Little Free Libraries across Albuquerque have constant demand for chapter books that kids actually want to read. Donating your used chapter books to NMLP means they go to programs where they will get picked up and read again, rather than sitting in a thrift store bin where children’s books are an afterthought.
The collectible end of the chapter book market is narrower but real. First printings of major series starters — the first edition of Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan, the first Diary of a Wimpy Kid, the first Hunger Games — carry meaningful value in the collector market. First-printing hardcovers of Jeff Kinney’s early Wimpy Kid books, before the series became a cultural phenomenon, are legitimately scarce. The same is true for the first printings of series that became massive: the first Warriors book, the first Wings of Fire, the first Dog Man. These are the kind of books that parents bought at a school book fair in 2007 for eight dollars and put on the shelf without thinking about it. Fifteen years later, the first printing of that book might be worth considerably more than what was paid for it.
I check every chapter book that comes through the warehouse. The reading copies go to the community. The collectible copies get identified, graded for condition, and listed individually. You do not need to know which is which before you donate — that is my job, and I am good at it.
Young Adult (YA)
Young adult literature underwent a transformation in the mid-2000s that changed the publishing industry. The Hunger Games, published in 2008, demonstrated that YA fiction could sell in quantities previously reserved for adult bestsellers. Twilight had already opened that door, but Suzanne Collins kicked it off the hinges. In the decade and a half since, YA has become one of the most commercially significant sectors of publishing, and that means the volume of YA books circulating through American households is enormous.
The YA books I see most often in donations reflect the waves of the market. The Twilight era (2005-2012) produced Stephenie Meyer’s four novels plus a shelf full of paranormal romance imitators. The Hunger Games era (2008-2015) brought dystopian YA to dominance: Divergent, The Maze Runner, Legend, The Giver (which predated the trend but was pulled back into it), and dozens of others. The John Green era overlapped with these, centering on realistic YA fiction: The Fault in My Stars, Looking for Alaska, Paper Towns. More recently, the market has shifted toward YA with social justice themes — Angie Thomas’s The Hate U Give, Jason Reynolds’s Long Way Down, Elizabeth Acevedo’s The Poet X — and toward YA fantasy in the tradition of Sarah J. Maas and Leigh Bardugo.
For donation purposes, all of this is welcome. Paperback YA, hardcover YA, mass market YA, trade paperback YA, graphic novel format YA — I take it all. The reading copies go through my redistribution network, and YA titles are among the most requested books for after-school programs serving middle and high school students. A used copy of The Hunger Games or The Fault in My Stars might not have resale value, but it has the power to get a teenager reading, and that is exactly where community redistribution excels.
The collector market for YA first editions is surprisingly active. First-printing hardcovers of The Hunger Games (Scholastic Press, 2008) in the original dust jacket have appreciated steadily. First printings of John Green’s Looking for Alaska (Dutton, 2005) — his debut novel — are genuinely scarce because the initial print run was small relative to his later fame. First editions of Angie Thomas’s The Hate U Give, which became a cultural touchstone, carry collector interest. And signed copies of any of these authors carry additional value, especially if they were signed at school author visits or bookstore events.
Advanced Reader Copies (ARCs) are another category worth mentioning. Publishers distribute ARCs to booksellers, librarians, reviewers, and educators before a book’s official publication date. These are usually trade paperbacks with plain covers and the words "Advance Reader Copy — Not for Sale" printed on the front or back. ARCs of books that went on to become major bestsellers — particularly if the ARC precedes significant text changes between the advance and final editions — carry collector interest. If your teenager came home from a bookstore job or a library internship with a stack of ARCs, those might be worth more than you think. I sort and evaluate these as well.
Children’s Books with Surprising Collector Value
Most children’s books are reading copies. That is fine, and reading copies serve an important purpose in the world. But some children’s books carry collector value that would surprise the families who own them, and this section is the reason I encourage people to donate to NMLP rather than discarding or dropping at a thrift store. I know what to look for. A Goodwill employee processing donations at speed is not going to catch a first-printing identification point on a Dr. Seuss title. I will.
The single most valuable children’s book in the world is the first edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, published by Bloomsbury in London in 1997. Only 500 copies were printed, 300 of which went to libraries. A first-edition Philosopher’s Stone in good condition has sold at auction for six and seven figures. The American first edition — Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, published by Scholastic in 1998 — is far more common but still carries meaningful value in the first printing, identifiable by the full number line running down to "1" on the copyright page and the "Year of Printing" line reading "1 3 5 7 9/9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9/8 9/9 0 0 01 02." Later printings of the American first edition are more modest but still collected. If you have any early Harry Potter hardcovers — purchased before the series became a global phenomenon, before the movies, before the mania — they are worth having evaluated before you give them away casually.
Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak, first published by Harper & Row in 1963, is one of the most collected picture books in existence. The first edition can be identified by the presence of the original price on the dust jacket flap and specific printing indicators on the copyright page. A true first in the original jacket is a serious collector item. Even early printings from the 1960s carry value, and the book has been reprinted so many times over six decades that most families who own a copy have a much later printing — but it is always worth checking.
The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein was first published by Harper & Row in 1964. The first edition has specific identification points, including the original dust jacket price and the absence of later printing indicators. Silverstein’s other major children’s titles — Where the Sidewalk Ends (1974) and A Light in the Attic (1981) — are also collected in their first printings. Silverstein signed books fairly frequently during his lifetime (he died in 1999), and signed copies of any of his major titles carry a meaningful premium. His illustration style is so distinctive and beloved that even later printings of his work have a loyal collector base.
The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle was first published by World Publishing in 1969. The original edition — not the later Philomel reprints that are far more common — is identifiable by the publisher imprint and copyright page details. Carle continued publishing actively until shortly before his death in 2021, and the breadth of his catalog means that early printings of his less famous titles (1, 2, 3 to the Zoo; The Grouchy Ladybug; Papa, Please Get the Moon for Me) sometimes surface in donation piles with surprising value. my first edition identification guide covers the basics of recognizing Carle firsts.
Dr. Seuss is an entire collecting field unto himself. Theodore Geisel published under the Dr. Seuss name from 1937 (And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street) through 1990 (Oh, the Places You’ll Go). The earliest titles — Mulberry Street, The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins, Horton Hatches the Egg — are rare in first edition and carry significant value. The Cat in the Hat (1957) and Green Eggs and Ham (1960) are collected aggressively in their first printings. Even the mid-career titles — Fox in Socks, One Fish Two Fish, Hop on Pop — are collected in early printings with original dust jackets. The challenge with Dr. Seuss is that his books have been reprinted so continuously and in so many formats that most copies in circulation are late printings with minimal collector value. But the early printings are out there, often sitting on shelves next to their later-printing siblings, and they are worth catching.
Caldecott Medal and Newbery Medal first printings represent a broad collecting category. The Caldecott Medal has been awarded annually since 1938, and the Newbery since 1922. First printings of the winning titles — especially from the mid-twentieth century — are collected by both individual collectors and institutional libraries building comprehensive award collections. A first-printing Caldecott winner from the 1950s or 1960s in the original dust jacket, with the gold medal sticker absent (because the sticker was applied after the award and a copy without it may predate the announcement), is a genuine collector item. Some of the more obscure winners have surprisingly thin first-printing availability because their initial print runs were modest before the award boosted demand.
The bottom line is this: if you have older children’s books — anything from the 1990s or earlier, especially hardcovers with dust jackets — it is worth getting them evaluated before you dispose of them. The library valuation tool on my site can give you a general sense, but the most reliable approach is to donate to NMLP and let me sort through them. I catch things that casual inspection misses, and when I find something valuable in a donation, I handle it properly.
Outgrown Home Libraries
This is the most common scenario I encounter, and it is worth addressing directly because I think it is the reason most people searching for "where to donate kids books Albuquerque" land on this page. Your kids are ten or twelve or fifteen now. The picture book phase ended years ago. The chapter book phase is winding down or already over. And somewhere in your house — in the kids’ closet, in the playroom, in bins in the garage, on bookshelves that have not been reorganized since the youngest was in second grade — there are hundreds of children’s books that no one in your household is going to read again.
The emotional dimension is real and I am not going to minimize it. Those picture books are tied to bedtime routines. The chapter books are tied to the phase when your kid discovered reading. The YA novels are tied to the summer they read an entire series at the beach. Letting go of children’s books feels different from letting go of adult books because children’s books are connected to your child’s development, not just your own reading preferences. I get it. My own kids are growing through these stages right now, and I already know the Elephant and Piggie books are going to be hard to let go of when the time comes.
But here is the practical reality. If you have 400 picture books in bins and no child in your household under age eight, those books are in storage, not in rotation. They are taking up space that you could use for other things. And every month they sit in storage, they are not being read by a child who would benefit from them. The most useful thing you can do with outgrown children’s books is get them back into circulation — and that is exactly what I do.
The process for donating an outgrown home library is the simplest thing I do. Call or text 702-496-4214. Tell me roughly how many books you have and where they are (on shelves, in bins, in boxes, piled in a closet — it does not matter). I schedule a pickup. I come to your home, load everything myself, and take it all away. You do not need to sort, box, or organize anything. If you want to pull a few favorites to keep — the book your daughter slept with every night for a year, the copy of Goodnight Moon with the torn page that is part of the family story — keep those. Give me the rest. I will make sure they end up somewhere useful.
If you are not ready for a pickup, the 24/7 drop box is open around the clock. A car trunk full of kids’ books fits perfectly. Drive up to 5445 Edith Blvd NE, transfer the bags or boxes into the bin, and you are done. The whole thing takes five minutes. No interaction required, no paperwork, no guilt.
Daycare and Preschool Donations
Daycare centers and preschools cycle through children’s books at a rate that individual families rarely appreciate. A well-stocked preschool classroom might have 200 to 400 books in active rotation, and those books take a beating from daily use by groups of three-, four-, and five-year-olds. Pages get ripped. Covers get torn. Books get stepped on during circle time, left outside during recess, and subjected to the inevitable juice-box spill. Over the course of two or three years, a significant percentage of the classroom library needs replacement.
Beyond routine wear, daycares and preschools also generate book donations during transitions. A license change might trigger a facility upgrade that includes refreshing the book collection. A curriculum shift from one early childhood framework to another can render entire shelves of themed books less relevant. Facility closures — which happen regularly in the childcare industry — produce the largest loads: the complete book inventory of a center that is shutting down, sometimes running to a thousand books or more across multiple classrooms.
NMLP picks up from daycares and preschools across the Albuquerque metro. I coordinate with the center director or owner to schedule at a time that does not disrupt the daily routine — early morning before the kids arrive, after closing, or on a weekend when the building is empty. I handle the loading. There is no minimum quantity and no condition requirement. If the center is clearing out a single shelf, I will come for that. If the center is closing and the entire book inventory needs to go, I will bring a truck and clear the whole thing in one visit.
For daycare operators and preschool directors: I understand that you do not have time to sort, box, and transport books to a donation center. That is the entire point of the pickup service. Call or text 702-496-4214, tell me what you have and when works for you, and I will handle the logistics. The books that come from daycare and preschool environments are among the most useful donations I receive, because they are the exact titles and formats that community reading programs need. A well-worn copy of Pete the Cat: I Love My White Shoes from a preschool bookshelf is exactly what a Little Free Library in a Title I school neighborhood needs in its rotation.
School Library Weeding
School librarians weed their collections regularly, and they should. A school library that never weeds becomes overcrowded with outdated material — science books with wrong information, social studies books with outdated maps, fiction that has not circulated in years, and reference material that has been superseded by online resources. The American Library Association and every school library professional organization recommends regular weeding as essential collection management. The question is not whether to weed but what to do with the weeded books.
In Albuquerque Public Schools, the weeding process generates thousands of books across the district every year. Individual school librarians pull books that meet their weeding criteria — low circulation, outdated content, poor condition, duplicate copies, curriculum changes — and those books need to go somewhere. Some go to other schools within the district. Some are offered to teachers for classroom libraries. But the surplus — the books that no one within the system can use — needs an external destination, and that is where NMLP comes in.
I work with APS school librarians, charter school librarians, and private school libraries across Albuquerque. The process is straightforward. The librarian contacts me when they have a batch of weeded books ready. I schedule a pickup that works with the school calendar. I come to the school, load the boxes or carts of weeded books, and haul them to the warehouse. The librarian does not have to carry anything to a car or make a trip to my facility. It is the same free pickup service I offer to everyone, adapted to the specific logistics of a school building.
Teachers retiring with full classroom libraries can follow my retiring teacher classroom library guide for a step-by-step process. Charter schools deserve specific mention because they tend to have smaller libraries with less support staff, and the weeding burden often falls on a teacher or administrator who is already wearing multiple hats. If you are a charter school staff member with a closet full of weeded library books and no idea what to do with them, call or text 702-496-4214. I will come get them. It does not matter if it is twenty books or two thousand.
Weeded school library books are ex-library copies — they have spine labels, stamps, barcodes, Mylar jacket covers, date-due slips, and card pockets. None of that is a problem. I accept ex-library books without hesitation. The library markings reduce resale value for most titles, but weeded school library books are excellent reading copies for community redistribution, and occasionally a weeded copy of something from the 1960s or 1970s turns out to have collector interest despite the library markings. I check every one.
Reading Program Partnerships
One of the things that makes NMLP different from a thrift store or a recycling bin is what happens to the children’s books after they arrive at the warehouse. The books with collector value get listed and sold — that is what funds the operation. But the vast majority of donated children’s books are good reading copies with no meaningful resale value, and those books fuel a distribution pipeline that puts them back in the hands of kids who need them.
I supply children’s books to community reading programs across Albuquerque. The specific partnerships shift over time as programs start, evolve, and sometimes close, but the consistent demand is for the exact kind of books that families donate: picture books for read-aloud programs, chapter books for independent reading programs, and YA titles for teen programming. APS Title I schools — schools where a high percentage of students qualify for free or reduced lunch — have particular need for supplemental reading material, and the picture books and chapter books that come through my warehouse are exactly what their classroom libraries and book-giveaway events need.
Little Free Libraries are another major distribution channel. Albuquerque has a growing network of Little Free Libraries — the small, front-yard book-exchange boxes that operate on the take-a-book, leave-a-book model. Maintaining a Little Free Library requires a constant supply of books, and children’s books are the most popular category in Little Free Libraries in residential neighborhoods. I stock multiple Little Free Libraries across the metro with donated children’s books, and the turnover rate is fast — a batch of twenty picture books placed in a Little Free Library in a family neighborhood will circulate through within a week or two.
After-school programs represent another consistent channel. Community centers, church programs, Boys and Girls Club branches, and similar organizations that serve school-age children after hours need reading material for quiet time, enrichment activities, and take-home book programs. The chapter books and middle grade titles that your family has outgrown are exactly what these programs need. A used copy of Diary of a Wimpy Kid or Percy Jackson that has been sitting in your garage for three years could be in the hands of a ten-year-old at an after-school program within a week of you donating it to me.
When you donate children’s books to NMLP, you are feeding this pipeline. Your outgrown picture books become the next preschooler’s bedtime stories. Your kid’s used chapter books become the after-school reading material for a child who does not have a home library. The connection between your donation and the end reader is real and direct — shorter and more traceable than the path a book takes through a thrift store or a national redistribution charity.
The 24/7 Drop Box
If you have a car trunk full of children’s books and you want to get rid of them right now, the fastest path is the 24/7 outdoor drop box at my warehouse: 5445 Edith Blvd NE, Unit A, Albuquerque, NM 87107. It is an outdoor donation bin accessible around the clock. No appointment. No business hours to worry about. No interaction with anyone if you prefer it that way.
The drop box is large enough to handle multiple bags or boxes in a single visit. The most common drop-off I see is someone pulling up with four to six bags of children’s books in the trunk, transferring them into the bin in about three minutes, and driving away. The whole process — from pulling into the parking area to pulling back onto Edith Blvd — takes under five minutes. It is, genuinely, the easiest possible way to donate children’s books in Albuquerque.
A few practical notes. The drop box is at the south end of the building. There is space to pull up alongside it. If you are bringing more than what fits in the bin at one time — which happens occasionally when someone cleans out a whole playroom — you can stack boxes next to the bin and I will get them when I come through. The bin is checked frequently, and everything that goes into it gets sorted at the warehouse just like a pickup load. Bags work fine. Boxes work fine. Loose books tossed in work fine. There is no wrong way to use the drop box.
If you have a very large load — more than about ten boxes — the pickup service is probably more practical than the drop box. But for the typical family cleanout of children’s books, the drop box handles it perfectly. Pack the trunk, drive over, drop it off, done. Visit the 24/7 drop box page for directions and photos of the location.
What Happens to Donated Children’s Books
Transparency matters, so here is exactly what happens to every children’s book that comes through my warehouse. The process is the same whether the books arrive via pickup or drop box.
First, every book is hand-sorted. I personally sort most of what comes through, and when volume is high, trained staff sort under the same criteria. The sorting process separates children’s books into three streams based on condition and collectibility.
Stream one: collectible titles. These are children’s books with genuine collector or resale value — first editions, signed copies, scarce titles, early printings of major authors, Caldecott and Newbery first printings, vintage children’s books from the mid-twentieth century or earlier, and any title that the market values above its cover price. These books are condition-graded, photographed, and listed individually on my eBay store or through my sister brand, SellBooksABQ. The revenue from collectible sales is what funds the entire NMLP operation — the free pickups, the drop box, the community redistribution, all of it.
Stream two: good reading copies. This is the largest stream by volume. These are children’s books in solid reading condition — covers intact, pages complete, text legible, binding functional — that do not have meaningful individual resale value. A used paperback of Magic Tree House #23, a lightly worn copy of The Day the Crayons Quit, a hardcover Elephant and Piggie book without a dust jacket — these are all good reading copies. They go to my community distribution partners: APS Title I schools, after-school programs, Little Free Libraries, community reading initiatives, and other organizations that need children’s books for their programs.
Stream three: recycling. Books with severe damage — missing pages, heavy mold, complete delamination of board book layers, water damage that has rendered the text illegible — go to my regional paper recycling partner. These books cannot serve readers in any capacity, but they can be recycled into new paper products rather than taking up space in the landfill. In a typical month, the recycling stream represents a small fraction of total volume. Most children’s books, even well-used ones, have enough life left for another reader.
The key point is that nothing is landfilled. Every children’s book that enters my system exits through one of these three streams. When you donate to NMLP, your books are handled by someone who knows children’s literature, who can identify the collectible copy hiding among the reading copies, and who has established distribution channels to get the reading copies to kids who need them. That is the difference between donating to me and dropping a bag at a thrift store where children’s books are an undifferentiated commodity.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do you take board books even if they’re chewed on?
Where can I drop off children’s books?
Do you pick up from schools and daycares?
Are children’s book donations tax-deductible?
What children’s books are actually valuable?
How many books do you need to schedule a pickup?
Do you take educational toys and games along with books?
What about books in Spanish or bilingual books?
Do you accept ex-library books?
What happens to the children’s books after donation?
Ready to Clear Out the Kids’ Books?
Free pickup anywhere in the Albuquerque metro. No sorting, no boxing, no minimum. One call handles everything.
Call or Text 702-496-4214NMLP is a for-profit business. Donations are not tax-deductible. I am transparent about this because I believe trust matters more than a tax letter.
Related Pages
Retiring Teacher Guide
Donating classroom libraries and decades of teaching materials. Free pickup from your school or home.
School Partnerships
How NMLP works with APS and charter schools to handle weeded collections and surplus book inventory.
Free Book Pickup
Schedule a free pickup anywhere in the Albuquerque metro. Any quantity, any condition, no sorting required.
24/7 Drop Box
Outdoor donation bin at 5445 Edith Blvd NE. Open around the clock, every day. Drive up, drop off, done.