How Do You Store Your Children's Books?

We have one of those 9-cube shelves (where you can put canvas bags in the cubes) and about half of the shelves are for books. On the other shelves, my girl (3) puts favorite animals, piggy bank, bucket of blocks, etc. She does forget to put her books away sometimes and there will be a small pile on her bed and/or nightstand, but when I remind her, she is physically able to arrange them on the appropriate shelves. This works for us because she has a pretty big collection and they range from 2in x 2in board books to large sticker books--and they all fit!

Lots of book shelves.
Our daughter literally had 1000's of books.
She would rather have any toys or anything else.

We filled her walls with shelves.
She learned to always put her books back on the shelf. In the beginning they were stacked in piles, but on the shelves.. then as she got older, I "allowed her" to organize them.

She was good about putting all of the "Little Critter" books together
All of the "Robert Munsch" Books together.
The Nursery rhymes.. etc..
Fairy Tales

Eventually she got taller and so the picture books were on the lower shelves and the chapter books began to be on the higher shelves.

We packed up the baby books.. I then donated them.

Then when she came across books she really did not care for I packed them and either donated them or sold them in garage sales.

Eventually once she was in elementary school, we had a huge clean out. Again donated or sold the "do not want to keep forever books", The rest were boxed and placed in storage.

Once she was getting ready to leave for college, we once again reviewed all of the books with the reminder... "These books will be yours the first time you move into your own place. We will not store them until you may or may not have children. " And so we have many, many boxes of her books and each summer, she goes through them and weeds out more and more.

This Christmas I actually made our "Tree" out a very small portion of her childhood books. I added a big silver star to the top and wrapped a strand of lights around them!

She was pretty excited to see some of those books, there are others she said, she "needs to weed out".. hee, hee,.

We have a large bookcase.
I am constantly going through these books. :)
I donate doubles or ones that my child is no longer interested in.

I do home daycare and have many many books! The paper pages books that can easily rip, and are for theme weeks, I keep up higher.

For the board books and books always out books, I sometimes use baskets. For those smaller-medium sized books. I got a bunch of baskets with handles from the dollar spot at Target and filled each one with a bunch of books, then put the larger books on the shelves, mixed in with the baskets. That way they can take a basket of books out and go elsewhere in our playroom with jsut those books at a time. Easy to transport and clean up and set back on the shelf. Like breaking down the whole of the books to compartments.

Works for us! Good luck finding what works for you!

I went to the store Homegoods (like TJ Maxx but with house stuff) and I bought some big canvas boxes (with metal frames inside - so they are pretty sturdy) and I store books standing up in them so the kids can flip through the books. The boys have 3 boxes in their room and my daughter has a small bookshelf and one big book box in her room.

I noticed that our local library stores books like that - so kids can easily flip through them to find the one they want, and they are not standing up on a shelf (easy to fall down).

I think that is plenty of books. Any that don't fit end up in our family room in the basement or out the door.

J.

I use a full size book shelf. That way they can reach the bottom two shelves. But that does mean books are all over all the time. I see no getting around that. also since we now read in the master, I have books all over my room too. So I guess i'm not one to look to for book management.

We have a coffee table with storage and that's where her books go if they are not shelved in her room. It may be that you have to help them put the books away and ONLY the books and not trust them to do it all on their own just yet.

My kids have a short 3 shelf book case in thier room. Probably $20 at Walmart. They have no problem putting books back where they go. Although at 3 they stacked them. That was ok with me. Maybe you could put in a book case but just start with 10 books. Have them learn to manage that and then add 10 more books until they get the hang of it.

I saw this cute book shelf thing on craigslist and grabbed it for $30. It's kinda like wooden shelves, but with canvas pockets to slip the books into. That way it's easy for them to put away and they can see the front of the book instead of the side (meaning they aren't pulling down 10 books until they find the one they want). I like it a lot but since it's used I don't know much about it. We use this for the "general" books in the playroom. But we also have a medium sized book shelf for nicer books (many, they aren't old enough for just yet, but I've been building a library for them since pregnant with my first son)---the higher shelves are books that I don't want little hands grabbing. The lowest shelf is for books they can look at on their own, the next shelf is for books we read together, then there's some rocks from their rock collection that they keep on the middle shelf. The top 2 shelves are for when they're older, things I consider classics that all kids should read or have read to them. As my youngest son outgrows some books (board books, fabric books, touch and feel stuff now since he's only 2) we donate them. In a few years when they've both outgrown Dr Seuss and stuff, they will be donated too. Keeps the clutter out, helps other children get opportunities to read and enjoy books, and makes room for more "grown up" books.

We have one of those shelves with cubes. The ones that have square spaces to fit baskets. We put his books on those shelves. (Without the baskets, they are just on the shelf.) It's easy for him to put away, so I prefer that to a shelf.

You need a bookcase, you can find a decent one at Target for about twenty dollars. Start teaching them how to put them back into the bookcase now so they will get used to doing it.

Totes.. storage totes for everything.. toys , books, clothes its all good and easy to close up and stack :0

I had bookshelves down low that were easily reachable by young children. The rule was take one out... then put it away. A child was allowed only either: one off the shelf at a time, or enough for bedtime reading (which could be two or three). Experience shows kids can understand and comply by with that by 3. When we had a traumatized, rambunctious 4-year old boy join the household with my 3-year old girl, he easily complied as well. He didn't handle things as gently as the 3-year old girl, but he certainly was able to do the same chores and follow the same rules she did.

Get a bookshelf with tall shelves so it's easy to fit them on and the kids should be able to do it. My son is 4 and he can put books away on the shelf if he can put them in straight (doesn't need to angle them for height issues)

We have book baskets/bins located in my daughter's bedroom, our bedroom, the kitchen & the family room/playroom. I rotate the books now & then. My daughter can easily access all of the books and find the ones she wants to read. As long as the baskets aren't overstuffed with books, she can look through them easily and it doesn't look messy. The baskets are pretty (some with ribbons), so they fit into our country decor.