Although there are a variety of ways that one can state this old saying, this one seems to be the oldest.

According to the Internet forum, A Way with Words and its radio program, Tim from Kalamazoo, Michigan, reported to them that his father used to say “You can give them books and give them books, but they just chew the covers right off.” He used this expression when he felt someone wasn’t following instructions or failing to understand an explanation.

This saying is most commonly applied to people failing to appreciate what they’ve been given. Other variations include: You send them to school, you buy them, the books, and what do they do? They eat the books and I buy books and books and all you do is chew the covers.

All the way back in 1949, a newspaper columnist joked: “The folks keep sending me to school, but all I do is eat the covers off the books. Bookworm, you know.”

The expression has been around for several decades, and its origin could be as simple as a reference to an teething infant chewing the cover of a board book.

Another possibility is that this notion originated in the wacky craze of competitive eating during the 1930s and 1940s, where college students insisted on showing off by eating live goldfish, worms—as well as the leather covers off of baseballs, and yes, magazine covers.

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