There are so many adorable (and practical) ways to store kids books. Learn some of my favorite ways for how to store kids books, plus some of the best bookshelf display recommendations!
Please note that this post contains affiliate links which allow me to earn a small commission when a purchase is made at no additional cost to you. Read more here.
It’s amazing how quickly a small stack of board books from a baby shower becomes a formidable collection that somehow manages to not only take over the baby’s nursery, but several rooms in the house.
Those thick sturdy board books (that are perfect for tiny readers) also take up quite a bit of space. And when your toddler is suddenly ready for picture books? Well, I guess you’ll need a bit more storage!
In this post I’ll share with you how to store children’s books–whether you are hoping to organize board books, picture books, or even chapter books. I’ll provide organizational tips, storage tips (and favorite storage pieces!), and ideas for how to rotate your collections so things stay fresh…and you don’t end up reading the same five books every.single.night.
Before we jump in, it’s important to talk safety! Books are heavy and they are often stored within even heavier furniture. Always, always, always, secure your furniture to the wall to prevent tipping! Furniture restraint kits are available online and the short amount of time it takes to install them is worth it. Protect those little ones and secure that furniture!
Another note on safety is to avoid storing your child’s books in cupboards/drawers (like I talk about later in this post) until they are able to manage the opening/closing without pinching their fingers (or a sibling’s).
Note that even if your kids can’t manage the drawers/doors yet, these options can still be great choices for rotating books collections. Put selections of books you want out of the way for awhile in one of these spaces (I always seem to have an empty dresser drawer handy) and make sure it’s locked/child-proofed as needed.
I also suggest avoiding any type of horizontal book stacks on shelves that the toddlers/kids would be reaching up towards. This method of stacking a few books horizontally is a quick way to create a bookend (that I often use for my own books), but it’s not a great choice for kids who inevitably will want the book on the bottom of the stack and inadvertently pull the whole stack onto their heads as they reach up.
In this photo I did the “horizontal bookend” because this shelf is part of a built-in and far out of reach for my toddler.
Turn on your JavaScript to view contentAs you choose storage areas for your children’s books remember to keep the books accessible. Like I talk about in my post about how to read aloud every day with your little ones, keeping books accessible is critical to developing life-long readers.
I love watching my toddler take book after book off of her shelves, paging through them all. Sometimes she even reads them all one more time. This activity can amuse her for a half an hour or more. Because the storage space is designated it’s easy to put them away again.
With that, let’s talk about rotating books. Rotating books just means dividing up your book collections and storing some of them out of the way. Then, just periodically rotate the collections as you grow weary of reading the same titles (if you know, you know).
A lot of this rotation seems to happen naturally as kids carry their books around, but if you have large collections it can be nice to limit how many books are out at one time–it’s hard enough to keep a house clean!
If you like, you can be more creative with your book rotations. Set up a wall of floating shelves and display seasonal books (like books about snow or gardening books). Maybe display books by a particular author or a theme (like animals, humorous books, or historical books).
Since I receive books frequently from publishing companies in addition to library books and the titles I purchase myself, our shelves have filled up fast! Keeping collections of books out of reach from my toddler (who, as I already mentioned, loves taking out and paging through aaaall the books in her collections) means that my house can stay tidy and we can rotate in a fresh stack of books anytime we choose.
I find that my children’s books do not stay “organized” long! But if kids are reading, it’s really not a big deal if things don’t stay just so. However, sometimes it’s fun to organize in different ways to keep things fresh. I especially love when it’s time to take out our favorite Christmas picture books and put those on display.
Here’s a few ways you could organize your books:
One of the best ways to store kids’ books is to keep your collections whittled down to what your home can actually hold. I personally adore books and have a hard time getting rid of any of them, but we will periodically sort through what we have and pass along books that we aren’t reading.
Books in good condition without staining, tears, missing covers are best to donate. Avoid donating anything you wouldn’t be thrilled about finding on a thrift store shelf yourself.
Now, let’s chat about specific storage solutions for kids’ books!
From obvious solutions (like children’s bookshelves) to utilizing what your home itself might have to offer (hello, built-ins!) there are plenty of options for storing children’s books.
This is my favorite option for storing kids books! Built-ins are sturdily secured to the walls already and they are often built with cupboards on the bottom and shelves on the top. If your toddlers/kids can handle opening/closing the cupboard doors without incident, this can be a great place to store their books.
We actually recently finished installing these IKEA HAVSTA storage units as built-ins in our basement (I haven’t yet filled them, hence the tiny stack of books there!) and I’m so excited. So much space and all those colorful children’s books will be contained behind convenient closed doors.
Now, if you don’t have built-ins, no worries! I love this beautiful HEMNES sideboard piece from IKEA (we really like IKEA around here I guess!) we recently added. We don’t store much in our living room area, but we realized that we needed some sort of solution for all the baby stuff that tended to accumulate.
Just remember to secure pieces like this to the wall for safety. For toddlers old enough to manage the drawers/cupboard doors this is an excellent choice for storing board books out of sight. Plus, it’s a pretty good activity to take every book out one by one!
What’s great about choosing a piece like this (or re-purposing one you own) is that the books can stay behind the cupboard doors and your space will instantly look tidier. Kids books come in SO many colors, sizes, and even shapes that sometimes keeping those bright stacks behind a cupboard can be a nice way to manage what might become visually cluttered. Not to mention that it feels a bit like a surprise treasure trove to your littles each time they open the doors!
Here are a few sideboard pieces that would be excellent for storing kids books:
Turn on your JavaScript to view contentOk, this one is obvious, but there ya go! We upgraded our old rickety cheapo bookshelves to the aforementioned IKEA HAVSTA built-ins and have loved the switch. However, if you are limited in space, or just love having books out in the open, a few well-placed bookshelves are a great solution.
Additional resources:It can also be fun to give each child a small bookcase of their own in their room.
Here are some pretty bookcases to check out:
Turn on your JavaScript to view contentAfter the baby stage was over, I realized that my daughter’s dresser was becoming quite empty. We no longer needed dozens of onesies, burp cloths, the baby carriers, or the next size up in clothing standing by.
Those empty drawers provided the perfect storage solution to the stuffed animal and board book problem that was becoming out of hand!
Dressers for the nursery or kids’ room:
Turn on your JavaScript to view contentAs I mentioned earlier, using floating shelves/ledges can be a great way to display seasonal books. The shelves allow each book cover to be visible which can be a huge help in gently encouraging otherwise reluctant readers.
Try these beautiful floating shelves:
Turn on your JavaScript to view contentI picked up these wall cubbies/floating shelves from Hobby Lobby and I think the scalloped edge is just the cutest. These smaller cubbies are great if you don’t have the room for larger floating shelves.
You can buy the set of three online at Hobby Lobby, but since the sizes are only sold separately in store, I opted to go to there instead and picked up three of the medium-sized shelves. And definitely purchase these on sale or with a coupon.
Another popular idea is to use the IKEA Spice Racks. They are small, so you won’t be able to store many books in them, but they are also quite inexpensive. You can see how they look with books over here!
This is the same floating shelf as above, but I just bought the largest size Hobby Lobby offers and used it as a decorative storage crate. This is a good way to corral excess books or make a little display of favorites on a dresser or similar.
This little book storage crate from IKEA would also be a great choice and it is meant to be used on the floor, which is perfect for littles!
Nearly all of us have an extra basket or two lying around. Tuck a basket near a favorite couch, chair, or in your little one’s bedroom with a few of your favorite reads. Scattering books around the home is a great way to embrace reading aloud all throughout the day!
I hope this post gave you some new ideas for how to store kids books! I’d love to hear if you have any thoughts or questions to add. And here is my question for you! How old are your kids before you get rid of (or plan to get rid of) board books? Or do you save them? Maybe just save a few? Posterity and all that? Help me out!
Once upon a time, we had a problem with book clutter. That means kid’s books all over the house. In the past I always believed that when it came to books—kids needed more, more, more.
However, I don’t believe that anymore—you can read the 3 reasons why you need to minimize kid’s books.
Indeed, less is often more when it comes to books. We purged many books and donated them to worthy causes, but we also kept a lot. Therefore, today I am going to tell you how we organize kid’s books in our house. We have one central location that we store the majority of the books and then a couple of points where we access books throughout the day. Here’s how you can get started.
You need to pick a control center. This is the main place where the vast majority of the books will live. It is best to choose a position that is out of reach from little hands, but not completely out of sight.
Young children have a hard time managing a large quantity of books all at once. Therefore it’s desirable to give them just a few to access at any given time. By keeping most of them out of reach you will help children to learn to respect and care for books. [more on this here]
For the headquarters in our house, we selected one shelf in my son’s closet. We chose this spot because that’s where we had the shelving space available. The children are free to roam in and out of the closet and my older one can reach the books on his tip toes. This works great because they aren’t in the main space where we spend time, but the books are still accessible to us on a regular basis.
Step Two: Minimize
Before you organize, you have to minimize. This is true for anything in your home, books included.
Do not skip this step.
There is no perfect number. It might take some trial and error to find the right amount of books for your home. We chose to slim down on the books until they all fit snugly onto one shelf. When it comes lining books up on a shelf, they stay put better if you fill up the designated shelf. Therefore, we don’t aim to keep a specific number of books. Instead, we try not to go too far over or under what fits on this shelf.
I should mention, it’s a big shelf–about 6 feet long.
Occasionally we choose books from the main control center, but typically the books are stored here until they are rotated into one of the access points. The access points are the locations throughout the house where books are available for easy access. We have three access points for books: My son’s bedroom, my daughter’s bedroom, and the play room.
These access points should be low to the ground so that a child of any age can reach them. When we designed my son’s room before he was born, we made the mistake of putting the shelves at adult level. Unless you like the idea of your child climbing the walls to get books, I highly suggest you put them low to the ground. You can see we have done this in my daughter’s room.
Keeping a few designated spots to access books will make it easy for kids to make a choice, read independently, and take care of the books by putting them away.
Shelves that display the cover of books are vital for young children. By keeping the books out and visible the children will be able to quickly see what is available and make choices–without having to actually take the books off the shelves. I love these clear acrylic shelves for maximum visibility.
It’s important to keep a minimal number of books on each shelf. This means, do not stack the books. If the flat shelves get overloaded, you will find that kids rip through them to see the options. Remember, the goal is not only to have less mess but to teach children how to properly handle and care for books. They will be able to do this when they have fewer books.
Once you have all your access points set up, start reading! When it feels like the books are getting tired, rotate them out with books that are in headquarters. Don’t feel the need to do it frequently, because it’s actually beneficial for kids to read the same book repeatedly.
You will eventually find the rhythm that works for your family. We don’t rotate on any type of schedule–I just do it whenever I have a little extra time. So there it is. Simple, right?
Like this post? Pin it!
Previous: How are children's books structured?
Next: Using Online Printing Is Better Than Your Local Printer
Related Articles
Comments
Please Join Us to post.
0