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Where do you keep children's books?
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Post Thu, Jul 16 2020, 9:45 am
Assuming you have a playroom, do you keep the books in the playroom? Or in their bedroom?
If in the bedroom, all books in one bedroom? Or divided in each bedroom according to ages/interests?
If in the playroom, do your kids take the books into bed to read before bedtime? How do you keep on top of getting the books back to the playroom?

What we're doing now is not working, and I want to get ideas of other options.
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amother
Wine


 

Post Thu, Jul 16 2020, 9:54 am
Books should be available in every room of the house. That's how you create readers.
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Post Thu, Jul 16 2020, 9:56 am
amother [ Wine ] wrote:
Books should be available in every room of the house. That's how you create readers.

But they also need a place where they belong when we're cleaning up and packing away.
How do you decide which books belong in the bedroom, which ones in the playroom, and which ones in the dining/living room?
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amother
Wine


 

Post Thu, Jul 16 2020, 10:00 am
pause wrote:
But they also need a place where they belong when we're cleaning up and packing away.
How do you decide which books belong in the bedroom, which ones in the playroom, and which ones in the dining/living room?


Books that more than one child likes go in public spaces, and each child can have a personal stash. Whether books are kept in a playroom or living room/dining room depends on where it's more comfortable for the kids to read and/or be read to.

ETA, library books are kept separately in a basket of their own
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mra01385




 
 
    
 

Post Thu, Jul 16 2020, 10:03 am
You can shuffle the books around every so often. Books that are in the bedroom can be brought to living room and vice versa.
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Post Thu, Jul 16 2020, 10:09 am
mra01385 wrote:
You can shuffle the books around every so often. Books that are in the bedroom can be brought to living room and vice versa.

I can see that becoming confusing that my kids won't know where to find a specific book they want, and also that when they clean up, they won't know where to put which books.

I find that the books, when shuffled around (I.e. thrown around) don't hold up well. The little ones use them as toys, and they're not built to be mishandled like that. I'm taping up and throwing out books sooner than I'd like to.

If I would know they're getting worn from being read, great! That's what I want! Instead they're getting worn from being stepped on while lying on the floor, being laid upon while on the couch, being hurled off the couch by those who want to use the couch, on the bed, under the bed, on the kitchen table (with food). It's like I can't keep up.
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Post Thu, Jul 16 2020, 10:11 am
I do have a separate space for the library books, but those too, the kids read and don't necessarily put back right away. We've already lost and had to pay for a couple of library books. What can I do to avoid that? Or is it a typical and expected "library expense"?
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frieda967




 
 
    
 

Post Thu, Jul 16 2020, 10:13 am
I keep all books in a bookshelf near bedrooms. Magazines in living room. Library books in a bin near the Bookshelf.

All books have a sticker on the spine and all the bookshelves have a matching color. Like these https://www.amazon.com/Avery-C.....NFQJ0

Now everyone knows where everything goes and can find everything easily.
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Post Thu, Jul 16 2020, 10:28 am
frieda967 wrote:
I keep all books in a bookshelf near bedrooms. Magazines in living room. Library books in a bin near the Bookshelf.

All books have a sticker on the spine and all the bookshelves have a matching color. Like these https://www.amazon.com/Avery-C.....NFQJ0

Now everyone knows where everything goes and can find everything easily.

I've seen these organizational color coding sticker ideas. How do you use them with thin soft-covered books? We've got lots of those.
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tigerwife




 
 
    
 

Post Thu, Jul 16 2020, 10:30 am
Growing up we had a library in the playroom. If we were in middle of a book, we kept it in our rooms, then returned it to the bookshelf when we were done. Some of us did keep nice editions or collections of books on our own shelf in our own rooms, but for the most part, the books belonged on the playroom shelbed. We had closets full of books.
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asmileaday




 
 
    
 

Post Thu, Jul 16 2020, 12:18 pm
Books are officially kept in bookcases in the playroom.
In the bedroom is only their personal sets that they got as a gift (like little house or Harry Potter).
Books do migrate to different areas of the house as they're being read. Every few days I make the kids collect it (but I didn't read it! is the most common complaint) and put them back in the bookcases in the playroom.
I don't have any magical solutions!
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Post Thu, Jul 16 2020, 12:45 pm
asmileaday wrote:
Books are officially kept in bookcases in the playroom.
In the bedroom is only their personal sets that they got as a gift (like little house or Harry Potter).
Books do migrate to different areas of the house as they're being read. Every few days I make the kids collect it (but I didn't read it! is the most common complaint) and put them back in the bookcases in the playroom.
I don't have any magical solutions!

So I guess it's normal to be constantly packing books away? Then a change of their location won't make a difference. It's time for me to accept that this is one more of my jobs as a mother Tongue Out
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sarys




 
 
    
 

Post Thu, Jul 16 2020, 12:48 pm
We have bookshelves in the family room, so my readers can curl up on the sofa with a good book, and that is where I read to the little ones. We have a full bookcase in the upstairs hallway for bedtime stories and night time reading. The only books in bedrooms are those in middle of being read, those can sit on the night table until done. The playroom only holds toys and craft supplies.
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ra_mom




 
 
    
 

Post Thu, Jul 16 2020, 12:51 pm
We reserved one of the bottom cupboards of the sefarim shrank for the children's library. Anything more than what fits on those 2 long shelves, means they have to give away some books before getting new ones.

The color coded stickers on spines work well. For skinny books, the stickers just wrap around to the front and back. The color is still visible from the narrow spine.

For library books, each kid has a nice wicker bin on their windowsill and they have to keep their borrowed books there. We don't allow borrowing more than 4 books at a time per child. More than that is asking for trouble.


Last edited by ra_mom on Thu, Jul 16 2020, 12:53 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Post Thu, Jul 16 2020, 12:51 pm
sarys wrote:
We have bookshelves in the family room, so my readers can curl up on the sofa with a good book, and that is where I read to the little ones. We have a full bookcase in the upstairs hallway for bedtime stories and night time reading. The only books in bedrooms are those in middle of being read, those can sit on the night table until done. The playroom only holds toys and craft supplies.

So some books are in the family room and some are in the upstairs hallway. Do you have a system for which ones belong where? Or wherever they land?
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Post Thu, Jul 16 2020, 12:56 pm
ra_mom wrote:
We reserved one of the bottom cupboards of the sefarim shrank for the children's library. Anything more than what fits on those 2 long shelves, means they have to give away some books before getting new ones.

The color coded stickers on spines work well. For skinny books, the stickers just wrap around to the front and back. The color is still visible from the narrow spine.

For library books, each kid has a nice wicker bin on their windowsill and they have to keep their borrowed books there. We don't allow borrowing more than 4-6 books at a time per child. More than that is asking for trouble.


Tell me about it. We still have some books out from before Corona. One book seems to be gone. I can probably return the rest via drop off, but I'm still hoping somehow that missing book (which wasn't found during Pesach cleaning) will turn up.
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ra_mom




 
 
    
 

Post Thu, Jul 16 2020, 12:58 pm
pause wrote:
Tell me about it. We still have some books out from before Corona. One book seems to be gone. I can probably return the rest via drop off, but I'm still hoping somehow that missing book (which wasn't found during Pesach cleaning) will turn up.

The color coded spines help when a library book is lost, because those without stick out like a sore thumb from the bookcases. Our library uses basic colors so we use fluorescent.
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pause




 
 
    
 

Post Thu, Jul 16 2020, 1:06 pm
ra_mom wrote:
The color coded spines help when a library book is lost, because those without stick out like a sore thumb from the bookcases. Our library uses basic colors so we use fluorescent.

Unless the library book is in someone's night table, between the headboard of someone's bed and the wall, behind the dining room buffet... Yep, these are all places we've found library books the day they were due (or well beyond the due date).

This is what I'm struggling with. I don't want to come down hard on my kids because I like that they read ALL THE TIME. On the couch. In bed. At the kitchen table. Even outdoors. But then that's where the books stay, and subsequently get ruined or lost.
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ra_mom




 
 
    
 

Post Thu, Jul 16 2020, 1:54 pm
pause wrote:
Unless the library book is in someone's night table, between the headboard of someone's bed and the wall, behind the dining room buffet... Yep, these are all places we've found library books the day they were due (or well beyond the due date).

This is what I'm struggling with. I don't want to come down hard on my kids because I like that they read ALL THE TIME. On the couch. In bed. At the kitchen table. Even outdoors. But then that's where the books stay, and subsequently get ruined or lost.

So instead, just put it in your biweekly maintenance schedule to have the kids bend down with a fly swatter handy to check behind the couch, beds, buffet.. and to pull out whatever is there with the swatter.
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amother
Chartreuse


 

Post Thu, Jul 16 2020, 2:01 pm
Thank you op,
I’m still trying to figure this out too.
I really appreciate that my children enjoy reading, but ....
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