I've found with books, as with toys, that too much even of a good thing is not a good thing. We used to have hundreds of books, books crammed in every free space in the house. We even had many doubles of books from when my husband and I merged collections. It used to bother me when I went to other people's houses and there weren't lots of books, who gets rid of books? My opinion about the gathering of books has slowly changed. When we first had Jack we lived in a 4 bedroom 1800 square foot house - lots of room for books there! However every move since then has found us in ever dwindling space. Our living space is now about 850 square feet. Thankfully we also have a basement and several outbuildings. I acutally love the size of my house, we have tiny bedrooms, big living areas and just enough room for the things we actually need.
Back to the books. Turns out we don't actually need to own hundreds of books. Pre internet days I didn't want to get rid of certain books because I was afraid I would never find them again. Now I feel fine letting go of books I've read, because books lost can always be found again. As far as kids books go, I used to think that owning massive quantities showed children that books were really important. In practice I've found the opposite to be true. The more my kids have of something, the less they value the individual items. When John's grandmother was a child she had an illness and they burned all her belongings in hopes of stopping the spread of infection. One of the things burned was a Mother Goose collection. She mourned the loss of that book! Can you imagine a child today feeling the loss of any one object that keenly?
For the last year I've been steadily weeding through our children's books. I've put some time into collecting seasonal books, and that's where I've put priority in what I keep. I also have approximately 25 Christmas/winter holiday books that I love (these get wrapped and opened daily as part of our Advent celebrations). All of these books have been stored (shoved) onto the top shelf of one of our two closets. Obviously not a very good system. They were getting crushed, out of order and taken down when I didn't want them to be.
The above is everything I had shoved in that closet.
I recently reorganized this closet and decided to round up random tote bags that I don't really use and assign a bag per category. The current season's books are out, so I have a bag hanging for Autumn, Winter and Spring. Plus we do of course have some favorites that don't fit in that category so there is a random favorite bag. Also, when Jack was learning to read I found some good early readers (not an easy task) and they have their own bag as well. The Christmas books are in a bin near the other Christmas decorations. I'm looking forward to the ease of grabbing a bag and swapping Fall out for Summer when the weather starts to change. I do get a little sad thinking about these bags and knowing that in a few short years the interest in picture books will dwindle.
The current books live in a basket in the living room. Both Jack and Lucy remember these books fondly from season to season, and are glad to see them when they make return appearances. We do also go to the library every other week, and Lucy can check out 2-3 books. I usually try to help her make quality choices. Although Jack started last school year unable to read, he is flying through grade 4 and 5 reading level books now. For summer he gets to choose whatever he wants from the library (as long as I think it is appropriate). The libary books live on their bedroom shelf. Tomorrow I'll share the books in our summer basket.
