Books

Books have been driving me crazy the last few months. What do you do with them? do you leave them all out on a shelf? Do you have them boxed by theme? Do you have tons or only a few?

I have tons and tons of books. I started off having them all out on a book shelf in the playroom with board books on the bottom for the kids to reach and the other books out of reach.

Well....a few months of cleaning books up every night and I decided to do a book basket for the kids to reach and I put a book shelf in the closet instead. That way I could only access the books unless I put them out in the basket.

well....now that book shelf in the closet is getting too small and it is hard to see them all properly inside the closet.

I bought a 5 shelf black plastic shelf that people usually put in their garage or basement to store items on and made that my HUGE bookshelf in the basement. I sorted all my books on to it and will bring books up to the playroom weekly to rotate.

I am not sure I have the best solution yet...but it is the best thing I have been able to think of.

What do you do with your books???

I have a ton of books as well, so I rotate them. I have one shelf full of board books that the children can reach. In another room, I have chapter books and paper books to which only the two 4-year olds have access. I have rubbermaid totes and boxes of books in the attic and basement, and I exchange them every now and then.

I used to work at a book company before I opened up my daycare. My husband still works there. I have soo many books, my husband put me on a temporary ban from buying any more! :p Although my collection has been depleting as I have been giving some of my books away as gifts, so it is time to put an end to the ban...

What I do is put some on a shelf that are out of reach, that way they don't get ripped. I have certain ones that are accessible at all times (mostly board books) and then some that I keep in a drawer near where we do circle, so they are accessible to me only, and I have them nearby. I keep my books in a basket as well for the kids.

However, my group is soo young right now that all my board books are getting destroyed, so I have put them all out of reach temporarily until they are a bit older. However, if a kids asks for a book, I will give them one.

I have the books fully accessible to the kids and have taught them to clean them up after. My collection isn't gigantic though so it's not a huge job.

They have a great bookshelf at toys r us that allows the books to be forward facing...the being said, I couldn't afford that book shelf so I used the front part of my sons old crib (the part that comes off when you turn it into a toddler bed,if you have the 3 in 1 crib)....turned it on its side and secured it to the wall. I hang all the board books off of it and all the kids love it! Even the babies can grab them off and sit and read. I have an extra tote of books in the closet that I rotate these books with. I also have a basket of more advanced books that I use for story time and the toddlers like these too. I have a reading corner with pillows, large stuff animals and bean bag chairs that all surround my hanging bookshelf...the kids love to read here and have some quiet time!

My books are on shelves out of reach in the playroom except for the bottom shelf where I put some board books. Upstairs I have two of those wooden rolling shelves that are tiered and the books face out and again the only thing in them are the board books.

When they are in a take out and discard mode I just collect them and put them in a big bin and up where if you ask you can have them. I usually leave just one or two down and we work on putting them away ie used as a learning tool.

my dh built me a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf. lower shelf hold board books and older books are the top. i rotate out non-seasonal books

I have a cabinet that is locked and I only let them choose books from there just before storytime. Otherwise I have two baskets of board books that I normally keep out, but I have been reducing the number greatly as they are all getting destroyed! It is frustrating as I want the kids to have access to books at all times and my daughter and 3 year old dcg love to sit and read to their dolls...so I don't want to put them all away...but I have so many nice books and they are getting totally trashed. I don't have a great solution either!

RE: Board books.....

Ugh...I am the type who keeps my own books pristine. I don't like bent pages or spines and it is disheartening sometimes when I put new shiny books in the book basket for the week and at the end of week see they are looking well loved. By the end of one week the pages are scuffed and the spine has little tears. Sigh.

It makes me tempted to not even have a book basket for the new books sometimes. We have had to send a few books to the bookstore in the sky because they were destroyed :( Repetitive reading and bending the pages and there goes the book after a couple of years.

I have a tall bookshelf in the reading/quiet corner. "Oldest" books are higher up, and so on, with board books at the bottom. Some vintage books (as in, books I had as a baby, LoL) on the very top shelf.
However, I have been thinking about putting a shelf up at the calendar corner, for our "theme" books. Currently, I just keep those in a basket by my chair.
Something like this?
http://pinterest.com/pin/56365432807740350/

It is worth spending the extra money to buy the wooden shelves with the solid shelves and not the cloth sling type although I'm sure you could buy some fabric and remake the shelves probably.

What you might try doing is lining the shelves with a file folder or cardboard folded accordingly so that it is the cardboard the books hit and not the fabric itsel - ie no corners poking into the fabric.

We probably all have tons of books and I started out with them on an open book shelf too. Now they are in a cupboard and I set out a stack of different ones every day and try to keep them in one area on the couch. Books are slippery for little people if they are on the floor, so I'm constantly picking them up, but then I'm constantly picking up cars, blocks, doll blankets and other things that hurt their feet.....and mine!

I just got the bookshelf from Toys R Us. Its on sale at the moment. So far it works great. I also keep all the little board books in a bin so the little kids can get a hold of them easily.

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Originally Posted by mom-in-alberta

I have a tall bookshelf in the reading/quiet corner. "Oldest" books are higher up, and so on, with board books at the bottom. Some vintage books (as in, books I had as a baby, LoL) on the very top shelf.
However, I have been thinking about putting a shelf up at the calendar corner, for our "theme" books. Currently, I just keep those in a basket by my chair.
Something like this?
http://pinterest.com/pin/56365432807740350/

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Those shelves are awesome and cute but I haven't been able to find them at Ikea or even online at Ikea's website. I saw them a few months ago on pinterst for playroom/book storage.
Maybe they were discontinued. They look great though

A similar kind of shelf that is becoming common is to use rain gutter to make shelves with pieces of it screwed to the wall.

I only have the board books out all the time with the other kind of book available to a select few kids and done at the table.

Pick up books at garage sales so you don't feel so bad when a 25 cent book gets ripped. Right now my teething toddlers have decided books are for chewing so they have been removed. We do not put books in our mouth period even if you are a baby.

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Those shelves are awesome and cute but I haven't been able to find them at Ikea or even online at Ikea's website.

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if you go on the Ikea website and punch in Spice Racks you will find them. They are $6.00 each.

I do have tons of books...probably hundreds...and I guess that is the big issue.

The shelf in the basement seems to be working well this week. I am picking up way less books and when I need a book, I can clearly read the spines now and pick what I need.

I used to work at Chapters for almost ten years so yeah my book collection for myself and my son is quite extensive. I have bookcases throughout our house in different rooms. In my main playroom I have one bookcase that has craft supplies, books I read for Storytime on higher shelves and then the lowest shelf has some more sturdy books. Also in my living room our coffee table has a shelf underneath that I have sturdy bins that hold the majority of our board book collection which my son loves to have easy access to at different times of the day. So I definitely will continue to have the more sturdy books accessible to everyone at any point but the books I truly treasure only I have access to them to supervise their use. I was considering getting the cloth sling bookcase but upon reading the post about it I may reconsider, my bins of books seem to be working just fine anyway.
I have a rule the bookcases I own are all I'm allowed to have so if they are all full before I can buy anymore books I have to get rid of some books to make room. It has somewhat curbed my crazy book addiction until that is I got my kobo. hehe don't ask me how many ebooks I have now for myself. lol