The sight of hundreds of hardbound tomes and softcover novels sprawled atop of the tables and shelves of the Dowagiac District Library can only mean one thing: The Dowagiac Ladies Library Association is holding their summer book sale.

The local library boosters’ annual sale returned to the downtown library, located on Commercial Street, on Thursday. The event continues for the next several days in conjunction with this weekend’s Summer in the City Festival, with the following hours:

• Friday, July 17, 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.

• Saturday, July 18, 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.

• Monday, July 20, 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.

Visitors to the sale will have a chance to buy fiction and nonfiction books and novels, aimed at children, teenagers and adults, as well as magazines, audio books and more. Hardcovers cost $1, softcovers 50 cents, audio/video cassettes 50 cents a piece, and magazines cost six for $1.

“We have a little bit of everything,” said Bev White, one of the members of the Ladies Library Association helping out with the sale.

The sale is one of the association’s yearly major fundraisers, White said. The members use the money collected throughout the year to help the library with various things; in the past, they have paid for new, secure shelving for the library’s more valuable works and for new window shades in the children’s library.

Normally the ladies hold a book sale during the winter as well, though the winter storms that plagued the area in February forced them to put this year’s sale on hold, she said.

The books on sale were given to the association over the years by the library from works taken out of circulation, and from local residents wanting to donate their old books, White said. The dozens of boxes containing these books are normally stored in a garage located by the library, though members of the high school football team lent their muscle to the ladies in the days leading up to the sale, helping them get set up inside the library’s east wing.

“I don’t know what we would do without them,” she said. “There’s no way us group of ladies could have carted all of those books ourselves. We want to give them a big thank you.”

On the sale’s final day on Monday, visitors will be able to purchase a bag full of books for $2, White said.

Running alongside the city’s summer festival, the members are hoping for another good turnout to the sale, from new and returning customers, White said.

“Be sure to come and check it out,” White said. “We have books for everyone, and lots of them.”