In my continuing struggles with trying to figure out what to do with stuff.... one category that has really exploded is children's books/chapter books for kids. I don't really want to get rid of any yet and probably won't for a few years at least, and we slowly keep accumulating more. All the kids have some amount of shelves in their rooms that are pretty full, and we have a cube thingy in the basement that's full. My plan is to put up some IKEA shelves in the finished basement and make a book area.
I'm just curious...do other people have these issues?? Do you have a lot of books? Where do you put them? Do you just keep getting rid of them??
I have a bit of an age gap between kids, so even though bookcases are full, I don’t get rid of any because I have one in every stage right now. As the youngest outgrows them, I can see myself keeping some favorites and either passing others on to family/friends or donating.
Post by mccallister84 on Feb 17, 2020 20:12:55 GMT -5
My girls are 20 months and 3 and we already have books everywhere. I can’t imagine how bad it will get as they get older.
I will say, that now that they are more reliable about not tearing pages and whatnot we take out a ton of library books. Is that a solution? I mean they’re still everywhere but then they all go back until we amass our next small collection
Yes! We have these issues. Each kid has a small shelf and we have a small bookcase in their hallway. I wish we had a basement that could offer some real storage options...Florida problems :-( DS1 is in 5th grade, DS2 is in 2nd and DS3 is 2 1/2 so everyone is in a different spot. I honestly try to really not buy many books and use the library as they get older. We have some "special" books that I have gotten to read aloud and they all get a new book or two when they have their book fair. I'm more apt to buy really nice picture books that I still will even read the big kids at night than a million chapter books for kids that have different interests and desires in their reading materials.
Post by timorousbeastie on Feb 17, 2020 20:24:49 GMT -5
When DD was 3, I decided to count how many books she had. I stopped counting at 500, and I wasn’t even close to counting them all. She’s 6 now; I don’t even want to think how many she has at this point! But at least the majority were hand-me-downs, bought at friends of the library sales, or from free little libraries. I have slowed down in the purchases as she has moved into more chapter books - I figure in the long run she is less likely to reread those as many times as she did her board books and picture book, so we try to just get them from the library.
Storing the books is a bit ridiculous. She has a bin of books in her room, a bookcase in her playroom, the top of a 3-cubby shelving unit in the kitchen, another bookcase in the basement. Even with all that, there usually are dozens more books scattered around the house in random places!
Post by Patsy Baloney on Feb 17, 2020 21:39:01 GMT -5
Both kids have a full-size book case in their rooms. DD is 6, so when DS came along, I had her go through her books and decide what should go to her little brother and what should stay in her room. That cleared out room for easy readers and chapter books. We also have 2 full-sized bookcases in our living room for books neither of the kids have grown into yet and adult books.
Basically, we just try to do an annual purge for any books that are no longer age appropriate or liked, and that thins the herd enough to fit on the cases.
We do ok with this, but I purge a couple times year and get rid of the ones that are a little young for them or that they haven't looked at in awhile. I also don't buy books for my kids, they only get them from family for holidays and birthdays. We go to the library a lot instead. They both love to read and have plenty of books, but I don't see any need for them to have shelves and shelves of them, especially if they are interested in the ones they do have. They both have a full bookcase in their rooms.
We have so many books! My kids have a 5 year age gap so I don’t want to get rid of any as my 3 year old will eventually read them all. Similar to you, we have bookshelves in the kids rooms and our common living space. I made an entire wall of IKEA bookshelves in one room (our previous house had built ins like it). I keep decorative/breakable stuff on the top shelves, decorative boxes/baskets/ bins to hid stuff in, framed photos, and kids books/ bins for toys in the bottom shelves. We have cube storage in other rooms. I’ve started to give away baby-ish books I dislike reading 100x unless my youngest really loves them. We have a lot of free mini libraries in our neighborhood, and 2 regular libraries. For my 8 year old we’ve been going to the library a lot the last couple years and buying less books. He loves to read and has to read in two languages for school. We still end up with tons of books from gifts or the occasional purchase.
I am no help with organization, but you are not alone. We also have a ton of kids books - they overflow all current bookshelves and just seem to pile up everywhere. This drives my husband nuts, but kids books are my “thing,” so his opinion doesn’t hold sway and I just keep saying “you can never have too many books!” I try to think of it as a great problem to have. 😊
I do purge them occasionally, always to the library friends group since I lead ours. I try to push borrowed books (which is how I do my own reading 95% of the time) though then those just become yet another thing I need to manage on a schedule. However, a few minor inconveniences are not a bad price to pay for what we get out of having access to so many. My girls both really enjoy reading and are so comfortable navigating around our library, and that to me is worth tripping over a few extra books for this phase of their childhood.
Post by thebreakfastclub on Feb 18, 2020 6:38:15 GMT -5
I hardly buy any books for my first grader. He brings home books daily from his teacher for assigned reading, as well as school library books. Then we have our community library. I don't feel a need to buy outside of that at this point.
This has slowed down a lot since C started kindergarten. His teacher lets him go to the library every day, and he is allowed to get two new books each time. We have cut way back on buying books (pretty much only get them from the book fair) but he still gets lots as gifts, which is fine.
We can contain it in one small bookcase in his room, and I think we’ll be able to keep it that way as long as we purge every so often and pass down ones he’s outgrown.
Post by expectantsteelerfan on Feb 18, 2020 7:39:51 GMT -5
Yeah, we literally have a huge pile of books in the upstairs hall between my kids' rooms. Their bookcases are all full, and they are books they both want to read and reread all the time, so if I take them downstairs to any of the bookshelves (we have ones in our living room and our office), they just get brought back upstairs and left there, so I've stopped trying.
We have a very, very small house but hundreds of books. Mine are on the top shelves in the living room (and several boxes in the attic for 'one day') and then the kids have several shelves in the living room and two bookcases in their (shared) room. Plus a big pile on the floor right now as their grandparents just visited and brought a million books along so we need to do a clearout. We go to the library too but I actually find it quite stressful to keep track of library books so we only get 10 at a time.
I really don't think kids can have too many books but we do cycle through them. I regularly get rid of the ones I can't face reading and we have cleared out almost all of the board books now to hand down to smaller kids.
We have SO many books. DD has a 9 cube storage bookshelf in her room and it's overflowing. I also have two big bins of books that she has outgrown in a closet somewhere. Eventually I will have to go through and purge but I'm not ready to yet.
I don't buy as many books as I used to but if she finds something she loves we will buy it because she is a re-reader.
My mom kept a lot of the books I loved when I was loved a kid and I had so much fun sharing them with DD and watching her love them, too. I want to do the same for DD. Keep the ones that mean something.
ETA: We do visit the library when we can but it's not super close and the hours are not convenient at all.
We have them in a few places. Books that can actually be read (stories) are on a bookshelf in DS1's room. I've started pulling out some of the board books for DS2's room and those are in a small tub. DS2 will eventually get a bigger bookcase to replace the tub. The playroom has a small bin of non-story books (like those infant ones that have 1 word per page) and I guess we're kind of in between kids on those because DS1 has outgrown them and DS2 isn't ready for them. There's no reason for those to ever live in a bedroom because they don't make great bedtime stories. Mostly we just read them while playing or snuggling on the couch. In the basement we have a bookshelf and there's 1 shelf of kids books that DS1 isn't quite ready for (long, complex) or books I can't stand that I really just need to get rid of. There's still a little bit of room left in these 4 different spots, but as they fill up I plan to purge.
While the kids are little I find it easier to have a collection of books versus the library. We're all busy and I can't keep track of library books right now. My kids like to read the same stories repeatedly. Once they're into longer books I think that will change. We got books from the library once and it felt like an annoying hassle. We get all of our books used so they're inexpensive or free.
I think the best bet is to designate a few spots for books and when they're full it's time to purge. Obviously we'll always purge from DS2's room as he outgrows books and he'll get new ones from DS1.
We visit the library a lot, too, but we still own a lot of books. I love picture books and will probably keep many even when they kids are past them. DS has a lot of science-y type books that he likes to look at over and over. Also all the kids got some sets for Christmas/bdays this year, and DD1 has a ton of American Girl books. And right now, my youngest is 5 and oldest is 11, so we aren't totally out of any book stage, really.
E1's bookcase in his room was getting full, but we just moved a lot of the younger books to E2's room. We have one cube dedicated to books in the playroom but the majority of the kids' books are in their rooms. I don't plan to purge books anytime soon.
That being said, I'm totally a hoarder of books and my personal library is very large. We have multiple built-in shelves in our home and they are FILLED with books, sometimes double stacked. DH and I also have piles of books on our nightstands.
Post by puppylove64 on Feb 18, 2020 10:18:27 GMT -5
I rarely buy books and we frequent the library but still manage to keep accumulating books. Here they give out books in the Christmas parade and the kids usually buy 1-2 at the book fair. I bought a large book shelf and it keeps getting fuller. We have a cozy chair next to the shelf for reading. I clear out duplicates and ones I hate every now and then. But until the last baby comes through, I don’t see us clearing out much for a while.
I hardly buy any books for my first grader. He brings home books daily from his teacher for assigned reading, as well as school library books. Then we have our community library. I don't feel a need to buy outside of that at this point.
Yup, I forecast a significant drop off in purchased books now that DS is in kindergarten.
Even so, it's a lot of books. But it pales in comparison to toys. So.many.toys.
My kids are in 2nd and 6th grade. I just cleared out a LOT of books. I was pretty ruthless-- we had a lot of random book fair purchases that neither one ever really liked or read, ones that were handed down that I know aren't of interest to my kids, baby-ish books that they have now outgrown. I kept a decent number to have on hand, but my oldest is plenty old enough for the library, and has actually started reading some of my books, so we could clear out a lot of his collection. My youngest is dyslexic and sadly does not enjoy reading much other than Diary of Wimpy kid, so I held onto some classics that I thought she may appreciate later, and got rid of most others. I did keep a collection of books for younger kids that had been my kids very favorites, and/or that had been given to us with a personalized inscription.
I am a life-long book hoarder, and it has honestly taken me years to whittle down to our current number. I'll go through them, thinking I'm being ruthless, but find that a few months later I can go through again and cut down even more.
This most recent time, I got rid of 8 boxes of books, both adult and kid titles.
We used to have a ton of books. We’ve gotten rid of quite a few of mostly DH’s books, but also some of the kids books. I have them go through their shelves every so often and they pull out the ones they don’t want anymore. Then the next sibling gets dibs on any before they are donated or given to my nieces. So like my older girls had a ton of Olivia and Pinkalicious books and my youngest DS kept them for a little bit, but then decided he didn’t want them anymore so I gave them to my nieces. Or like all the early reader books got donated after my youngest was reading fluently. And the board books went away after the youngest had moved on to regular books. And some get taken out before that, either because I don’t like them or because the kids are tired of them or whatever. I love books and so do at least 2/3 of my kids (the oldest isn’t as into reading as the younger two) so we have to purge continually to make sure they fit on their shelves. If they don’t fit they have to pass on to a younger sibling, their cousins, or the donate pile. I veto some that they attempt to give away either because they are from my childhood or I think they will appreciate them more later or they hold a special place in my heart for some reason.
We also go to the library about once a week and my middle kid will check out 20+ books at a time. And she has a Nook to keep her filled up on books between library visits. She reads a lot, it’s almost impossible to keep up with.
No, I'm pretty ruthless about clearing out and selling the ones she outgrows.
I only keep sentimental ones, such as ones from my childhood or ones I love from her childhood and books that are for her current stage. She has one bookcase in her room with about 3 shelves full and one cube downstairs in the playroom with books.
We have tons of books. We still have early readers which I will put in the donation bin as soon as my youngest makes the transfer to short chapter books. I did thin out the books over the holidays since it was very bad and donated 4 bags of books including things like never used coloring books. I do buy from the scholastic flyer and the book fair but have largely curtailed my buying since we have so many books already.
No, I'm pretty ruthless about clearing out and selling the ones she outgrows.
I only keep sentimental ones, such as ones from my childhood or ones I love from her childhood and books that are for her current stage. She has one bookcase in her room with about 3 shelves full and one cube downstairs in the playroom with books.
Same on all of this. We take wagonfuls to local Little Free Libraries 3-4 times a year.
Post by icedcoffee on Feb 18, 2020 11:31:19 GMT -5
This is where I will thrown in a vent that some of our neighbors throw literal garbage into our neighborhood little free library. Last week there were like 12 volumes of some science encyclopedia from the 80's. Dude...no one wants that shit. Like, yes, there might be a young kid in the neighborhood who is super into science and might enjoy it, but that's not super likely so find a different way to unload them. They're taking up 90% of the little bin. The little free library is outside an elementary school so how about we keep it to books for kids 5th grade and under? /End vent
My kids have a big enough age gap that I move books down from kid to kid. Each kid has their own 8 square bookshelf from ikea filled with books. We also have a bookshelf in the living room that I use for overflow books and library books. I did purge a ton of board books before kid #3 when we thought we were done.
My only real solution is to try to stop buying so many and use the library more. If the kids ask for a book repeatedly I’ll buy it but otherwise I just have to stop purchasing so many.
Each kid has a small shelf in their room. I keep a basket of books in the playroom. We have living room built ins for our adult books. I donate as needed to keep our collection to those spaces. We go to the library for everything else.
Goes along with our general goal to keep stuff and clutter at a minimum.
This is basically true for us, too, although DS has a large bookcase in his room. But we cull the kids' collections maybe once or twice a year, or anytime a kid says they don't like a particular book anymore.
My kids are 11, 8, 4 and I give away/donate boxes and boxes of book every year - and they just keep coming. I keep the ones that are special and sentimental or that they love to read over and over. Anything else needs to go.
My oldest likes to read and reads fast. He is quickly accumulating a collection as reading is the only way the active kid will sit still. I'm going to redoing his room and adding more storage for books.
We don't do the library a lot because looking at books is stressful with three 3 year olds and I don't trust them all with library books.