Tristan

It’s going really well.  Makayla will be 15 next month and she’s the biggest book collector.  She prefers books in print, though she’ll read them on Kindle when she’s not near a print copy.  She has filled a tall 5 shelf book shelf with books, occasionally double stacked, with more on top of the shelving, and some stacked on the bottom of a side table.  She keeps about 2 boxes of books in the attic too, often these are nonfiction/crafting guides she pulls out when she needs them.  Book lover for sure.

All the other kids have some books of their own, clear down to the baby.  They generally request at least 1 book at Christmas or birthdays, love to visit Half Price Books every few months and buy their own books, etc.  None of them have nearly as many as Makayla.  Emma would be next in amount of books, she has several series and individual titles she loves, and tries to claim others that are family books on our shelves as hers when she moves out.  Ha!  She probably has around 40 books.  Joseph and Daniel have about 15 each, with the younger boys not so many of their own because they’re happy to pull off the family shelves.

I think giving them each a shelf area works, and then they have to box up and store the overflow.

We do have lots of Kindles and people read on Kindle a decent amount.  A few of my kids really love listening to audio books when they play/build with Legos/draw/craft.  But real books can’t be beat for collecting.

We don’t get multiple copies of a book for literature, but if they love a book after we read it they can buy a copy for themselves or let me know to keep an eye out for a copy.  (Ex: we have several copies of Charlotte’s Web, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, and Little House on the Prairie books picked up at library sales for a few cents.)

Do what works for you.  Try collecting if you want.  If it doesn’t work out then sell the extras later on!