Children's books

[Karen]

Do you have any creative ways of organizing your children's books? My dh and I love books and, so far, our 2 yo dd does also. We never get rid of a book, so my question is, how to make room in my dd's room for her books. Do you move out the younger books - she still likes to go back to these and "read" them? How do you make the books accessible to the child? She is moving from board books to regular books, but still needs help with the regular books, esp the ones that we absolutely don't want torn.

Thanks!

[darlene]

Hi Karen.
How about a low bookshelf in her room? Maybe only 2 - 3 shelves high. Be sure to bolt it to the wall so if she tries to climb it it won't fall over on her!

Keep the younger aged books at the bottom for easy access for her and the ones she needs help with closer to the top.

Each of our kids has a six level bookshelf in their rooms and they are almost full! Yes indeed we are a family of books.

:read:

:)

[Lynda/WA]

DD (5) has about 10 shelves of books in her room. I'm planning on upgrading to sturdier bookshelves and attaching them to the wall. Right now I keep the heaviest ones on the bottom. Lightest on top since the shelves get really top heavy. Since she has half a dozen shelving units in the room they are all mixed with the toys. One set will have only the very bottom with books and the rest of the shelves with toys. Another set will have books on the bottom 4 shelves and toys she rarely uses on top of that. Right now she's going into K. If she's like her brother she'll probably be more into chapter books in a year or two. Then I'll weed out the book and get rid of many. I know that goes against the grain to a booklover! I figured I'd just keep the favorites and classics. All of the Dr Suess and such.

The problem doesn't go away either! DS is 9. right now his books are spread between three places. A three shelf bookcase in the living room. That ones overflowing books stacked on top of each other instead of side by side and the piles are 2 stacks deep. He also has underbed boxes under his bed and in the garage.

I'm the worst of the bunch. 3 bookcases 4 shelves high in the living room. Those have the cookbooks and educational books that I want handy. A 5 shelf bookcase for the craft books. I went with stackable crates in the garage for the rest of those types of books. The ones I rarely use but want to keep. I'm guessing there are 20 crates.

DH converted a dresser to a bookshelf. That's in the bedroom for smaller books. I can go 3 deep in 4 shelves. I estimated there are over 1,000 books there. I also have underbed boxes filled and more of those in a shed. I'm trying to organize those right now. At last count I had over 30 of those boxes!

Poor DH has 1 bookshelf next to his side of the bed. Both of our bedside bookshelves double as nightstands on the top.

[Linda/NE]

My kids love books. Luckily they are all old enough now to know what to do with a book. A few Christmases ago we got a toy box couch. The seat of it slides off. We put their most used books in there. They can slide the seat off to get a book, put the seat back on and sit on 'their' couch and 'read.' I just went through the couch this summer and took out all the board books. I told the kids that we'd give them to other kids who didn't have books and we could get some new ones. Any really special books I put in a book shelf in the living room, where we keep library books, so they know they have to be extra careful with them.

[Sasha Rowan]

My ds is slowly filtering the board books to dd. They each have a 3 shelf bookcase. Ds's is overflowing and dd is pretty full too. The books usually get put on wichever bookshelf is handiest. Ds is learning to read now. I shudder to think what his shelf will be like at this time next year. There are 5 6' cases split between me and dh. Plus I have a 4 shelf bookcase at mom's with my old kids books. I plan on leaving them there for kids to read when visiting. Mom doesn't mind. She's the who addicted me.:read: :ghost:

[kathleen]

I love to read, myself and am (hopefully) passing that along to my son...Periodically we will go through his books and weed out some that he is either too old for or doesn't show much interest in still. We will then donate those to our local library. Up until recently we lived in an apartment and didn't have much storage room, and I couldn't bear to put them in a yard sale. I would much rather the library have them!

[kacee]

I just organized my dd's books. It is hard for me to give them up. A few of dd's favorites and my favorites, I put in a box to save. The rest will go to the library. We have bookshelves in dd's room. Currently, 3 contain books. The top shelve has above her level, but she gets books from there to read. This summer she read one of the Royal Daries books. This was above her level, but Egypt is her thing right now and she did it!!

I did sort by paperback, hardbook and religious books. We shall see how it stays this way!! :D