A very important book organization question :)

[kokotg]

I have a wall and a half of brand new Billy shelves staring at me right now, and I'm feeling a little overwhelmed. Here is my current dilemma: do you think it's better to keep kid books in kid rooms or have a big family collection in one place? I can think of quite a few arguments in favor of one big collection. The two major ones are that they're at the ages where there's not really a firm division between kid and adult books and certainly not between the 9 year old's books and the 11 year old's books....so the books in my 11 year old's room are more or less inaccessible to my younger kids (he's pretty protective of his room). Also, not insignificantly, my youngest has a severe dust mite allergy, so there's something to be said for getting as many dust traps as possible (like stuffed animals and books) out of his room.

 

The only argument I'm coming up with against getting all the books together is that it just seems kind of sad for them not to have book collections in their rooms. Historically, we have books in pretty much every room of the house.

 

Thoughts?

[HejKatt]

My dc are younger than yours, but I've been stockpiling books.. I keep them out in the main area, DS has a bookcase in his room for books that he especially likes, and every once in a while we clean out that shelf so it returns to main circulation.

[Mom-ninja.]

We have a bookshelf is the boys' room with some of their books. Then I have the other bookshelves in the school rooms separated by subject. One bookshelf for science books, one for history/mythology, one for German, one for literature/fairy tales, and finally one for all adult books.

[Mrs Mungo]

My kids each have a small (not a short Billy, something smaller) bookcase in their rooms. That's where they keep their personal favorites, any books autographed to them, etc. Most of them get rotated in and out fairly regularly. I think it works as a good compromise.