Back Porch Book Chat: Eli Evans from Exodus Books

Back Porch Book Chat: A casual, virtual conversation about books. Join us as we chat with book lovers like ourselves about a topic we all love! Our guest today is Eli Evans, owner of Exodus Books. He joins us today to chat all things books. Readers, he’s a kindred spirit and has some outstanding suggestions for book buying near the end. Check out his bio after the interview for more about Eli. Interview conducted by Betsy.

Fine print: some of the links below are affiliate links for Exodus Books. Purchases you make through those links may earn us a commission at no cost to you. Read our full disclosure here. Fellowship members: you have a coupon code for Exodus Books, so check your Membership pages: Golden Key, Silver Key.

Getting to Know Eli

Before we begin, tell us what beverage you’d like as we sit in our (virtual) rocking chairs on our (virtual) porch this late fall day: Hot cider? Coffee? Hot chocolate?

Well, first off, let me thank you for inviting me to join you here! I have greatly appreciated getting to know y’all at Redeemed Reader over the last couple of years; I admire your work and am honored to be asked. For that drink, I think I’d love some hot chocoloate with a dash of Kahlua to spice it up!

Great choice! We’re hot chocolate fans around here; in fact, we included lots of hot chocolate recipes in our Hobbit guide.

Tell us a little bit about yourself and your bookstore. How did you get started with Exodus Books? Is there a story behind the name?

Let’s see. I started reading at 4, and have always loved books. Due to a variety of factors, my parents decided to homeschool me and my siblings, so I was able to read nearly whatever I wanted growing up. As a homeschooled high schooler, I had the flexibility to work, and a couple of wonderful employer mentors taught me a lot about business management.

My uncle, who had inspired my parents’ decision to homeschool, started an educational Christian bookstore during my freshman year, and by the time I had graduated, it had grown enough to be overwhelming for their family, but not quite enough to support them. He had to give it up, and I just happened to be in the right place at the right time. While he was skeptical I could handle the responsibility of running the business, he gave me a shot, and it took off! I have been running Exodus Books for 25 years as of this month(!), and next April will mark 25 years of ownership.

The basic name Exodus was purely my uncle’s idea, but it has been shortened a couple of times, from Exodus Multimedia Services, to Exodus Provisions, to Exodus Books. Obviously, it’s a biblical allusion. Exodus means “to come out of,” so our mission is to help families come out of the public school system and to help Christians escape the humanist worldview that surrounds us. Good literature, I think, promotes those goals and is a special passion of mine.

Wow. I didn’t realize Exodus had been around that long! Very cool.

Eli’s Family: Books, Books, and More Books

Eli, you’re a homeschool dad and have an online and in-person bookstore. Even those who don’t follow you on Instagram will know that’s a recipe for books everywhere! Tell us how you like to use books as part of your family culture—both in the official “homeschool” sense as well as ordinary life outside of school.

So, I have five kids (7 year old daughter, 10 year old son, 12 year old daughter, 14 year old daughter, 15 year old boy) and am, unfortunately, divorced. That means half of their schooling falls to me—an incredible blessing! I collect books because *I* love them, and am not particularly utilitarian about them. My kids see me constantly looking at books, photographing books, comparing books, and yes, reading them. Often, they’ll ask, “what is that book, Dad?” My response is generally, “Read it and find out!”
We don’t use much in the way of a set curriculum, so books comprise a lot of their learning material. I try to work with themes in books. This year, for example, the theme for the teens has been totalitarianism, so we’ve read books on Hitler and the Nazis, Stalin, Mao, and also gotten into titles like Animal Farm, Fahrenheit 451, 1984, Hiding Place, and God’s Smuggler. That’s not appropriate for the youngers, so for them the themes have been lighter. My 12 year old daughter has been reading the Opal Wheeler composer bios, listening to their music as she goes; my 10 year old son has been fascinated by the David Macaulay architecture books.

Our kids could talk some serious shop about books. My teens all read The Hiding Place, God’s Smuggler, and Animal Farm within the past couple of years. I need to check out those Opal Wheeler biographies! What are some books your family has particularly enjoyed this past year?  

We finished reading aloud Lloyd Alexander’s Chronicles of Prydain books early this year, and really enjoyed those. We read through Anne DeVries’ gripping Journey Through the Night series (WWII), and by the end, the kids were asking if there were any more, so we moved on to Margot Benary-Isbert’s Ark and Rowan Farm (delightful!). Personally, I’ve read little fiction this year, but some I especially relished were Elizabeth Miller’s Pran of Albania (an early Newbery Honor), Nayeri’s Everything Sad is Untrue, Turner’s The Thief, and a reread of Herbert’s Dune. Together with my two older kids, I’ve lately been reading James Owen’s wildly imaginative “Chronicles of the Imaginarium Geographica” (the kids have pretty much finished them; I’m on book 5).

My oldest son read through the Divergent trilogy, Megan Whalen Turner’s Queen’s Thief series, and both Mistborn trilogies (which inspired a curiosity about chemistry!), along with his assigned reading this year. He doesn’t show excitement easily, but seemed to like them all.

My oldest daughter also read through several of the same series her older brother did, along with Scarlet Pimpernel, Pride & Prejudice, Jane Eyre, and Wuthering Heights, before discovering the Geographica books (it’s her fault!). Those have actually inspired a fair amount of side reading–she has tackled books by Mark Twain, HG Wells, and is now exploring C.S. Lewis’s Space Trilogy!

My middle daughter is more of an artist and doesn’t read as much in her spare time, but a few titles she especially savored this year were Fisher’s Understood Betsy, Lindquist’s Golden Name Day, Tyre’s Hope in the Holler, Hashimi’s Sky at Our Feet, Seton’s Wild Animals I Have Known, and Malvern’s Behold Your Queen.

My second son read through several of Holling C. Holling’s books this year, and read…and reread…and reread…Nathan Hale’s Hazardous Tales series (along with Tintin every time my back was turned!). I think novels have intimidated him, but something clicked recently and he’s loving reading through The Hobbit for himself for the first time!

My youngest daughter still mostly has me read to her. Some of her favorites remain Sailor Dog, Five Chinese Brothers, Frances the Badger, and books by Bill Peet. She has also gotten a kick out of Lloyd Alexander’s The Fortune Teller and some of the Graham Oakley Church Mice books.

Clearly, if I bring my entire family to your bookstore, we’ll have to plan an afternoon for our kids to discuss books. My teens and I (boys included) just finished listening to Pride and Prejudice this summer (a re-listen/read for my daughter and I), and we listened to Out of the Silent Planet with my husband this past spring. One of my daughter’s favorite books is The Scarlet Pimpernel.

Do you have any quick tips for organizing home libraries? Keeping up with what we have so that we don’t buy duplicates accidentally (*coughs* not that I’ve ever done that.)? Or are you more like me: why organize when all these books are in near constant use?

Oh, I’m very organized, except that I’m running out of space (again), but I don’t use any software except for a pair of google docs of books I’m looking for! I think organization of home libraries is an intensely personal thing. Space, books you have, books you want to leave room for, their intended use–all play into decision making on how to organize. Some people use an app (i.e., LibraryThing); others with with visual memories really like to arrange them by color (I see the visual appeal, but this blows my mind!); still others have space restraints and rotate books in and out, trying to keep appropriate books accessible for their various purposes.

My own library has themes: there’s a history section, split out roughly by era; there’s a fiction/lit section arranged mostly by author; there’s an “oversized” shelf and a “retellings” shelf, a “dog” shelf and a “mythology” shelf; and I have full shelves for versions of Robin Hood, King Arthur, and Arabian Nights (kind of crazy). Collectible picture books are tricky, but I have mine arranged mostly by illustrator… though for the kid’s picture books, forget organization! When I’ve decided to collect a series as a series, I’ll keep those together. I don’t worry too much about duplicate titles, because I like to compare illustrators, though I can’t keep all of them forever… I don’t know if I can call these tips, but it’s what works for me.

Again, kindred spirits here. Megan and I’ve had many discussions on home library organization, but we land similarly as you: function and form/size can trump authors, but I do have to confess to having multiple versions of certain works so I can compare illustrations….

Eli’s Store: Exodus Books

How do you choose which books to purchase for your store?

As a for-profit bookstore, I have to admit part of it is demand. If we have enough requests for a book, we’ll probably carry it, unless we can’t do so in good conscience. To shape the bookstore into something I believed in, I remember first sitting down with Honey for a Child’s Heart and making a list of books I loved, then beginning to research what was affordably in print (we’ve done this with several other excellent book lists also). I gradually found friends and customers I respected and began to run this list by them and ask for their feedback (their recommendations were SO helpful).

On the demand side, we carry the books essential for major curriculum book lists. For example, we carry most of the books you would need for, say, Beautiful Feet, Sonlight, or Ambleside (and numerous others). Those lists are essentially complete in our catalog now (though revisions are always happening, and we have to keep an eye on them!), so this last couple of years, we’ve been focusing on new sources of inspiration; the two that have had the most impact for me have been the FB group Reshelving Alexandria (a great community that shares so many cool, nearly lost, vintage books) and, honestly, Redeemed Reader. I admire your reviews, and if a book has earned a starred review on your site, it’s automatically on my radar! If we carry it new, we’ll offer it used, and buying used books sometimes exposes us to titles we simply have to carry new, too!

We’re so honored that you trust us enough to carry our starred reviews! We also love that we can point readers to your store for those titles. [READERS, Exodus Books is not amazon; there are not a million copies of those books, so if you want something in stock at Exodus, snap it up!]

I know you have some really neat older editions in your collection. You also like to compare different editions of the same book. Can you tell us about one of your favorite editions of a children’s classic? Or perhaps a favorite series? Or a favorite illustrator?

This is such a big question for me! I’m constantly doing this, researching a book or an author or an illustrator and I really appreciate seeing the differences between artists. 2021 has been the year of Wind in the Willows, Augustine’s Confessions, and Howard Pyle and the Brandywine School. For WitW, I found and photographed illustrations from 21 different versions of the book; that page isn’t live on my website yet, but it’s *really* close. For the Confessions, we found 11 translations and compared same passages from each side-by-side. And on Instagram and Facebook, I’ve been relishing introducing Howard Pyle and some of his remarkable students–posts on N.C. Wyeth, Edward A. Wilson, and Jessie Willcox Smith are coming soon! There have been some other amazing artists I’ve gotten to feature recently too: Arthur Rackham, Tasha Tudor, James Daugherty, and Trina Schart Hyman, to name a few.

Those illustrators are some of the greats! I only have 4 Wind in the Willows books….

Bookstores in the Covid Era

The pandemic and recent world events have affected bookstores in some interesting ways. How have you seen your own business change or adapt this past year? Has there been a difference in the way your online presence has been affected compared with your physical store?  

Yeah, the pandemic has been an interesting dynamic for us. At first, with the stay-at-home mandates, my employees first decided to work from home, then found unemployment more attractive than the pay from the limited hours I could give them. Libraries and schools closed; we couldn’t open to the public either. But I found sales, especially for fiction, skyrocketed! I came in to the office, pulled and packaged orders while offering a limited-hours “pick up window,” and then dropped the orders off at the post office on my way home and luxuriated in some lovely spring afternoons. I was making more and only working about 16 hours a week!

But that meant inventory (especially used books) wasn’t being replenished, and shelves were getting bare. Since it was just me for the time being, I had to decide whether to simply reorder old titles or start experimenting with new options. I decided to revisit the Newbery and Caldecott lists and took a closer look at the books on Redeemed Reader. We’ve added hundreds of titles to our catalog over the last 18 months.

We ended up “reopening” in the summer of 2020, though because we refused to enforce mandatory masking, it was sort of on the down-low. People have appreciated that our store champions freedom and feels “normal” in the midst of the current craziness. They’ve been supporting us in part by bringing us so many great books for trade-in; in fact, used/vintage books are threatening to overwhelm us right now!

Eli’s Tips for Buying Used Books (vs. Newer Editions)

What advice would you give our readers when they’re trying to decide between a newer copy of a classic or an older edition? When is it worth waiting on a particular edition to be available used and when would a newer edition serve just as well?

There are so many classic books available, and we all have different needs. If you just need to read a book and pricing is your main concern, with all the online search options, you can usually find titles affordably, or even free digitally in many cases. But if you actually want to build a library for your family, I think it comes down to three main things: Readability, Durability, and Attractiveness.

Readability:

1. consider the physical size and weight of the book (is it too big & heavy to handle?)
2. watch for preferred fonts and layout (while I am fond of the fonts in many older books, some people actively dislike or have a hard time with them)
3. see if a newer version offers “extras” like author interviews and essays that are helpful (these are often not in original or early editions)
4. research translators, if applicable (I tend to prefer newer translators, so, to tie in with your upcoming Redeemed Reader Quarterly theme,* while I own a copy of Palmer’s translation of Homer’s Odyssey because I adore the N.C. Wyeth illustrations, I’m going to actually *read* my Lattimore or Fagles translation.

*Our November 2021 issue was Myths and Legends; we featured a 2-page spread all about the Odyssey!

Durability:

If you’re only going to read it once, this is not a big deal, but if you have a bunch of kids who might cycle through a book, it’s worth thinking about. Hardcovers generally will wear better, especially if they’re well-constructed, but some vintage hardcovers are nearing end-of-life. Their glue and paper might be brittle and fragile, and if you’re going to panic every time a child picks up a book, better to just get a paperback! Some of the more durable hardcover collections I’ve seen are the Dilithium Press Children’s Classics, Books of Wonder series, the Reader’s Digest classics, and the 1980s Scribner Illustrated collection.

Attractiveness:

This is so incredibly subjective! I personally love the look and feel of old books, especially with dust jackets and vibrant illustrations, but I’m of the Marie Kondo mindset on this—it should “spark joy!”

Wow, those are terrific tips. I’ve definitely fallen prey to the “cool, vintage book that looks amazing” but which then sits on my shelf because we’re all afraid to actually, you know, READ it.

Finally, as everyone talks about book shortages and paper shortages, it seems like buying used books is a great way to practice stewardship in our Christmas shopping. Can you offer our readers any tips about navigating the used book scene online as they shop for Christmas? What are your best tips for searching and finding books on Exodus Books?

I totally agree that buying used books is a fantastic way to practice stewardship. It’s also ecologically friendly, and often you can find beautiful books that are simply not available anymore! My personal favorite websites to find books to purchase are used.addall.com (for broadest coverage) and abebooks.com (for most refined results). If you’re trying to support small businesses and avoiding behemoths, it’s almost always best to track down a small bookstore’s phone or website and order direct. Most of us smaller dealers really appreciate that!

On our website, www.exodusbooks.com, the “Fiction & Literature” tab offers the broadest selection from our catalog. I’m actually not sure how many titles we carry anymore, but I know it’s over 15,000! There are some marvelous tools there:

• the “Doorways to Great Reading” page lets you see hundreds of favorites from popular book lists; [Readers, this is where you can find the Redeemed Reader list of starred reviews!]
• the award-winning pages include ratings and reviews for [nearly] ALL the Caldecott & Newbery Medalists (I think we’re only 3 books short!);
• the Classics Comparison page gives you an introduction, teaching tools, and lets you see side-by-side comparisons of several major works;
• you can filter classic literature by period, nationality of the author, and genre…all at once!
• and don’t miss the vintage and collectible section, getting bigger nearly every day!

Filters on the pages allow you to narrow lists down to age level, used books only, and so much more! I’d love to walk you through these tools if they’re confusing! Oh yes, and we offer gift certificates if you just can’t narrow down your choices! 😉

It’s been such a pleasure to talk with you! Keep up the good work and let me know how I may be of service!

Thanks so much, Eli! Your suggestions are great, and I can attest to the wide and varied selection at your bookstore. One of these days, I’m going to visit in person.

READERS: if you’re a children’s literature nerd (and, well, we assume you are if you’re a fan of RR!), you can request to join Eli’s Facebook groups that talk all things Newbery and Caldecott; see his bio below for those links.

Eli Evans, homeschool dad of five, owns and operates Exodus Books, a Christian bookstore in Oregon that “specializes in home school curriculum and great reading for all ages.” When not schooling or working, he enjoys reading (of course), hiking the Pacific Northwest, watching movies, singing in his church’s choir, and finding / sharing funny memes. He also spends a great deal of time collecting, comparing, photographing, and writing about vintage books on Facebook and Instagram. He admins the FB groups “The Newbery Books Discussion Group” and “Caldecott Books Discussion Group” and you can find him on IG at @exodusbooks, @rackettypackettyhouse, and @outsideofadogbooks. The bookstore’s website is exodusbooks.com.