From the seventeenth century onwards, there was an increase in the number of teaching communities in France taking on the management of small charitable schools for working-class girls and boys. These communities set out in their regulations the way they wanted the classes to be run. They recommended the collective lesson method, which presupposed that all pupils who were at the same level should have the same book in their hands. This practical constraint meant that different ways of organising the provision of books to pupils emerged among these communities. One community, the Brothers of the Christian Schools, stands out in particular for its highly integrated book system, which was set up by their founder, Jean-Baptiste de La Salle. It included a common corpus for all schools, contracts with printers and direct sales to pupils. This particular aspect of the Lasallian community’s history is the focus of this article.