How do you store your dc's books?

[tearose]

I want to store our children's books so that they are both neat and accessible. My main problem is storing really thin softcover books because it's hard to identify them without pulling them off the shelf. I'm considering putting them into baskets--if so, how would you sort them and what size basket to minimize chaos? And do your dc cooperate in keeping the books organized? I have my story books separated from nonfiction (and nonfiction is sorted into categories). Gutter shelves aren't an option for us, unfortunately, and even if we did that, we have SO MANY books. Ideally, I want to pull books weekly for a book basket and be able to easily put them back where they belong.

[ChristineW]

:bigear:

[Renthead Mommy]

I had tons of books. They were all from husband's aunt who was a teacher for 25 years and had all these books from scholastic that she'd send. So the books would arrive about a 100 or so at a time, so they needed homes quickly!

 

I stored the soft covered ones in about 15 dish pans. The books stood up, the kids could flip through them (like record albums) and see the covers. Plus I could lable the front of the pans for certain types of books. (Science, dinosaurs, fairy tales) The dish pans fit on the shelves, make moving things around easy and were only about .99 cents each. Plus the dish pans end up having tons of other uses as well as you thin out books.

[ChristusG]

We put them into baksets and onto shelves. The small, thin ones go into baskets. On my blog, you can see it in this post: School Room . You can see the larger books on the shelves and on the floor beside the shelves is some baskets. I've found that it works really well! Much better then when the kids had ALL their books on shelves and I cleaned them up daily. :glare: