Grade school brown-paper-bag book covers

While riding the bus this morning, I saw someone reading a book with an odd book cover. It made me think, if I was reading that book, I would put a cover over it. Then that reminded me of when we were in grade school, how we would cover our textbooks with brown kraft paper from grocery bags.

How odd that is. Were our parents (or the school) really that concerned that the books would get that dinged up. But then again, we were little kids that would throw our books around and treat ’em like total crap. And those books had to last for over 10 years (which was neat to see what kids had signed their name at the beggining of the book. You know if a big screw-up had a book before you, then you were doomed in that class!)

But really, it was kinda neat, because it allowed us to write on the cover of our books. In essence to personalize our study books. In a way, that gave us kids a psychological ownership and pride in our school books.