Is a book exchange for a birthday party as easy as it sounds?

[gatorsmom]

I know I've seen this thread before but for the life of me, can't find it now. My boys are having a birthday party very soon and I'd like to do something like a book exchange. I've seeen that some of you have done this before and think that would be a great way to avoid getting MORE toys as well as avoiding the whole party favors issue.

All the kids are under 6yo so appealing to everyone shouldn't be too hard. Is it as simple as telling the invitees to bring a new children's book to exchange with others in lieu of a gift? Are there some tricks to this like me buying more books in case someone forgot to bring theirs? Do we wrap them or not? If we exchange books and I provide pizza and cake, do I still need to do favors?

ETA: Yes, I am an idiot. Found plenty of threads regarding book exchanges (I just needed to spell correctly) so I changed my above questions to reflect this.

[shishamo]

Hi,

We did book exchange parties before. Yes, just like you described: ask for a wrapped book book in lieu of gifts and skip favors all together (we handed out balloons which was the party decoration). It worked very well for my daughter's 5 year old birthday. We put numbers on all the books that was brought, and stuck numbers in a hat for everyone to pick. If you pick the book you brought, you put the number back and pick again. One thing I would do, is when you purchase a book to give away, make sure you already have an another copy at home. Or, buy two copies and give one to the birthday child. I didn't do this and my little girl wasn't very happy about it!

Other than that, it worked well for us :-) I'm sure I'll do one again.