When I was a kid, my Mum gave my two brothers, my sister and I books from two different series: the first one we would get another book from for our own birthday; the second one we would get another book from on our own birthday and everybody else's as well! On top of that, books were definitely to be shared, so that I got to five new books to read for every birthday. :-)

The nearest book shop was 100 kilometers away, so buying books ourselves wasn't really something we could do very often. On the other hand we did get taken to the library by the school once a week for half of each semester; that was where most of my reading material came from!