I think I need to thin my bookshelves…help!

Another thing I do in my library to free up shelf space is double shelve series. I have the first book of the series in front and the rest behind. There are TONS of series that children love (Freddy the Pig, Happy Hollisters, Bobbsey Twins, Cherry Ames, Trixie Belden, Five Little Peppers, All-of-a-Kind Family…and the list goes on forever) that there was simply not room to have them all front and center. Lots of creative ways to find space.

Can someone give me a link for bookshelve toppers? Or give me a little explanation about how they look or are fastened to the bookcase?  That sounds interesting.

Happy Hollisters are fun. 🙂 Not great literature, of course, but I find children enjoy these series because the characters become like old friends and they want to visit them over and over. I think that’s why there were so many written. One of my young patrons on her first visit to my library asked me, “You’ve probably never heard of these, but do you have Happy Hollister books? My daddy read them when he was young and I’d like to read them, too.” She was thrilled when I took her to the shelf with about 20 on it. She and her dad have read many of them together. Enjoy.

Karen, Liz Cottrill’s husband simply made wooden ones that fit on top of the existing shelves. You can see some of them on their website. Also on this page, Emily gives a video tour of their library. Mine is laid out much the same by Dewey, although the layout of the rooms are different, with about the same number of books.

http://www.livingbookslibrary.com/p/library.html

If you have all these 1,000s of books in your house, how do you expose the children to them?  Do you scatter selected copies around to interest them?  Or do the kids really browse the shelves like they would in a library? I know houses with no media (no computers, no tvs, no video games, etc.) don’t tend to have to figure this out, but that’s not us!

I started out buying every living book on every subject thinking “oh, I’ll use that” and then found that I was quickly running out of space and really did not want to own all those subject books.  New material comes up and new books are published in subject areas – I just found I wouldn’t keep up (financially or otherwise).  Now, I limit purchases to literature selections – classics or ones I know I have on a list for future years.  Even this way we still rely heavily and happily on the public library systems.

Claire: We limit screen time. They do not have to read in their free time, but many times they do. Yes they do browse our home library shelves. They have a good understanding of the sections I have it organized in. They return to favorite books many times. And sometimes I set books out or put them in a book basket if they are titles relating to what we are studying but not scheduled for school. They will browse through these out of curiosity and end up reading some of them. I love being able to go to a book on our shelves to help answer their questions or expand on a topic in school that they are curious about.

An example: read aloud scheduled for school is Holling’s The Book Of Indians. I was reading the chapter about the desert, canyons and mesas. There were few pictures, although it was a lovely description. I directed the kids to the science section to get a book on deserts and one on the Grand Canyon. They looked at the pictures while I read on. Yes, they could have looked for pictures on the computer, but now they know where to go when they want to read further about these topics on their own.

As for the cost, I buy used mostly from library sales, thrift stores, and Internet sites.

My lending library is located in an apartment in my basement, just downstairs from my living room. It has its own entrance and bathroom but easily accessible to us. My boys browse the shelves or ask if we have a book on a particular topic. And as Christie said, the books on my shelves are very rarely found in public libraries anymore. Most of my treasures are from before 1970, written during a time Michelle Miller, author of Truthquest History, calls the golden age of children’s literature when authors sought to edify children through their writing.

An interesting thing about my extensive science section filled with older books…it is the most used section of my library among my patrons. Am I saying nothing valuable can be learned from the newest, shiniest books being published today. No, of course not. But have we really learned that much more about the butterfly in the last 50 years? And the children who immerse themselves in a McClung will build a relationship with butterflies they will never forget, much more so than with a dull, dry factoid-laden book.

I know not everyone can or wants to do what I do. I never borrow a book of any kind. Ever. But I love loaning my collection to children who are eager to have their minds fed with these gems.

Thank you Cheryl. I wrote that to inspire and not to brag. I start ed my home library because our public library is in another town and we would have to buy cards yearly. But I have grown to understand the values of our own library at home, and there are tons of used books out there. While I am somewhat choosy, I buy modern books some too.

Actually there are families who are collecting to open libraries whose children are grown. They saw the impact living books had on their children growing up and they want to make a difference in the lives of homeschooling families in their community. I began collecting with the intention of opening a library when my only child was 10. We never anticipated being able to have more children but God blessed us with another son when my oldest was 13 and by adoption four years ago. My oldest is now 23 and had there been no more children, I would definitely have the library still. It is such a blessing to our family.

And there’s always grandchildren! 🙂