How to Declutter and Organize Kids Books (So that kids will read more!)

Do your kids have a large collection of books? As awesome as it is to have a lot of books, it is still important to declutter and organize kids’ books every so often! You will find that when you organize your kids’ books, they will read more. Plus, they will pick up books that they might not have even realized they had. Or they might reread a old favorite book. Sharing the best tips for how to organize kids’ books!

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How do you organize a lot of children’s books?

Before you can figure out how to organize a lot of children’s books, you need to declutter them! Your kids’ books will never stay organized if you have too many books. When you have piles of books that are all over the place, kids do not know where to find them. So ultimately, they will not read as much.

You will find that when your kids’ books are organized in a clear manner, they will reach for a book more often!

5 Steps to Declutter and Organize Kids’ Books

We will discuss some of the best ways to organize kids’ books. But first, we need to talk about how to declutter your kids’ books.

Collect all of your kids’ books and pile them in one place. 

The first step to decluttering your kids’ books is to take inventory of all the ones that you have! So gather up your books from all over the house and pile them into one spot. You might have books in the living room, kid’s bedroom and even the car!This step is a good way to see how big your book collection really is.

Group books into categories. 

The next step to decluttering your kids’ book collection is to group the books into categories. Now you can see what types of books your kids have a lot of. Think of your kids’ book collection as an at home library. By having books grouped together, they will be able to quickly and easily reach for the genre they want.

Here are some kids’ book genres you can use to categorize their book collection:

• Picture books
• Board Books
• Reference books including encyclopedias, dictionaries, joke books, how to books and fact books
• Early Reader Books
• Early Chapter Books
• Elementary Chapter Book Series
• Middle School Chapter Books
• Book Sets
• Children Chapter Classics like Judy Blume and Beverly Clearly
• Graphic Novels
• Poetry
• Seasonal Books

Your book categories will depend on the book collection that you have. So you may or may not have books in all of these genres.

Get Rid of Books

Now it is time to declutter your kids’ books! Take a look at the different piles. Are there duplicate books? Are there books that your kids did not enjoy reading? Get rid of books your kids do not read. This is the time to let go of books that your kids have outgrown. I’ll share what to do with your children’s old books later in the post. 

Put Books on Display

You have pared down your kids’ books to the ones you want to keep. Now, you need to decide how to display and organize your kids’ books.

There are several different way to display children’s books. But the key thing to keep in mind is that you want your kids’ books to be easily accessible. You can have a pretty book display but if it is too hard for the kids to reach the books, then they will not read them. Also, you want to make sure that it is easy for the kids to keep their books organized. If the book organization method is not clear for them, then the books will be disorganized in no time!

Keep similar books together and make sure that the kids can see the titles of the books. So the book binding should be facing outward on a kids’ book shelf.

Rotate Seasonal Children’s Books

One way to get kids to read different books is to rotate their books. This might not be something you want to do all the time, but the holidays are a good time to bring out different books. You can even store holiday books along with your holiday decorations! This will free up more book shelf space and it will remind you to bring out seasonal books!

What should you do with old kids’ books?

Now that you have pared down your kids’ book collection, you are wondering what to do with the old books. The great thing about getting rid of books is that there are a lot of things that you can do with old books.

1. Share books with your friends and family. 

Do you know someone that has younger kids? Everyone loves to get new books for their kids. What is old to you is new to the person you are gifting the books to!

2. Donate to a free little library or community library. 

Another way to get rid of old books is to donate them! Bring your kids’ books to a free little library near you. Or if you can not find one of those, than you might be able to donate gently used books to your local library. Often times, libraries will have book sales with the donated books to help raise money for the library.

3. Host a Book Swap

Several years ago, my daughter hosted a book swap at the beginning of the summer. It was a great way to celebrate the end of the school year. Plus, the girls all were able to get some new books to read for the summer!

4. Take to a Book Resale Shop

Another great way to get rid of old children’s books is to try to sell them! If you have a local used bookstore in the area, try to sell your books that are in great to excellent condition. You should not expect to get a lot of money back but is certainly an incentive, especially for kids, to get rid of some books.

5. Sell Kids’ Books on Facebook Marketplace

Another option for selling kids’ books is to list them on Facebook Marketplace. The best kids’ books to sell on Facebook Marketplace are elementary school chapter books. If you have the entire collection of a particular children’s series, you should have no trouble selling the books. There is no bad time to try to sell kids’ books but a really great time to list them is at the beginning of the summer. Parents are always looking for summer reading for their kids! Read my post Best Tips for Selling on Facebook Marketplace to help you get the best money for your books!

6. Use Old Books as Art

Another great use for old books is to actually put the books on display! You could frame old book covers and put them on display in a kid’s bedroom or playroom! This is a great way to re purpose old books and bring new life to them!

Kids’ Book Storage Ideas

Once you have pared down your kids’ book collection, it is necessary to figure out how and where to store them. There are a lot of great storage solutions for organizing kids’ books!

Bookshelves 

The best place to store books in in the kid’s bedroom. They are much more likely to grab a book to read at bedtime if the books are within an easy reach!

If you have enough space, a big bookcase is a great way to store kids’ books. We love this large size bookshelf. We can group books by categories into the different compartments. This bookcase comes in several different finishes.

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If you do not have enough room for a bookcase, you could hang a few book shelves. These acrylic book shelves are so stylish and functional. Hang a few of these shelves near your kid’s bed for an easy reach for bedtime stories!

Book Basket

My youngest son gets out of bed so many times to grab books from the bookshelf. I finally realized that I needed a book basket by his bed with some of his favorite bedtime stories. It is nice for him to have easy access to his own books. Plus, it to have a basket to keep the book clutter at bay.

Similar basket option

Baskets of books can be incorporated into other places in the house. It is nice to have a basket of books in the living room and playroom. You never know when your kids will want to read books!

 

Create a Book Nook

Another great option for storing kids’ books is to set up a book nook!

For many years, we had a tepee set up as a book nook! I would put a few seasonal books inside the tepee and my kids loved to crawl inside and read by themselves. You can fit a reading nook just about anywhere you have a corner!

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Ideas for Small Spaces

There are a lot of clever ways to store books if you do not have much space. You can use wooden crates, wire baskets and under the bed storage.

If you are short on space, you do need to be mindful about how many books you own. You should only have as many books as your space allows!

Here are a few additional kids’ book storage ideas!

This book cart is adorable! Plus, it has wheels so you can move it around the house.

 

We have and love these wooden crates! They can hold a lot of stuff but especially these crates are good for book storage!

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These wire baskets are nice for younger kids because they can see what is inside of them.

There are so many great options for organizing kids’ books. What do you do with all of your kids’ books?

 

Are you a book lover? If you are, then your kids probably also have a lot of books. I know sometimes it feels like the book clutter can get out of control.

But you can have a neat and organized kids’ book shelf in your child’s room. And just think how much more they’ll enjoy all of their books if they can actually see what’s there! Here’s how to make it happen:

2021 Update: See my newly organized kids bookshelf here!

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Tip #1: Declutter. Get rid of books that you don’t love and read regularly.

The best way to keep the book clutter from getting out of control is to limit the number of books that you keep in your home.

Take the time to sort through your books. Decide which ones you love, and want to keep, and which ones it’s time to let go of.

What to do with books you don’t want anymore:

1. Donate them to a teacher or a school: Teachers usually build their own classroom libraries, and appreciate quality book donations. Even if they already have plenty of books in their own classroom library, they might know another teacher who is just starting out and looking for books.
2. Donate them to your local library: A lot of libraries hold sales where they sell old books or donations. This can help supplement their funding.
3. Recycle them. Or throw them away: If a book is in poor condition, or just really old, I promise- it is OK to recycle it. And if a pile of books was thrown up on by your two-year-old while she was sick with the stomach bug… throw them away! No one wants you to donate those books to them!!! (Not that I’m speaking from personal experiences or anything…)
4. Give them to your kids’ friends: Put a photo on Facebook and ask if anyone is interested. Or you can host a book swap where everyone goes home with new books to enjoy.
5. Sell them: If you have books that are still in great condition, you might be able to make some money off of them. You can try your luck with Facebook Marketplace or selling them at a real yard sale. Some used bookstores will pay you, or give you store credit, for your books. We’ve had a lot of success selling kids’ books on Ebay– especially if the books are old classics that people remember from their own childhood.
6. Donate them: Check out charities like Books for Africa or Better World Books, or just fill up a bag and drop it off at your local thrift store.
7. Give them away on Freecycle: This is a website that helps people give things away for free to other people in their towns or neighborhoods. Or use a local buy nothing group on Facebook.
8. Use them for crafts… or give them to someone who will: Check out this Pinterest board for inspiration!
9. Host a book swap! (See my best tips on how to do it here.)

Tip #2: Designate a special place in your home for library books.

Checking out books from the library is a great way to keep your books organized. After all, you’ll eventually be taking them back, right? 😉

But it can be really helpful to designate a special spot for the library books while they are visiting your home. And make sure that special place is not near the spot where you keep your own books! Otherwise, they are sure to get mixed up.

We store library books in the cabinet under the TV in our living room. We don’t have another bookshelf in the living room, so the books usually stay pretty separated. It makes it easier to find and return all the books on time each week.

Tip #3: Use baskets for small books or board books

If you have tiny, little books that are always falling off the bookshelf, contain them in a cute basket that fits right on the shelf.

We use one wire basket for mini board books, and the other to hold all of our copies of Highlights Hello magazines. It’s a lot easier for little hands to put books into baskets than to stand them up in a row on a bookshelf.

Tip #4: Use book bins

I bought these great book bins on Amazon, and labeled them with pictures of Emma’s favorite books. She actually helped me pick out the pictures she wanted to use, and we taped them on together.

Now it’s a lot easier for her to find the book that she’s looking for, and it’s also a lot easier for her to put them back in an organized way. Which is a game changer if you don’t want to be cleaning up books by yourself every day!

My husband also bought some wire mail organizers, and screwed them to the girls’ bunk beds. That way, they had a space to keep books that they were reading in bed (instead of throwing them on the floor when they were done.)

That’s it!

What do you think of these tips?

Now it’s your turn to tackle that bookshelf, and get organizing. Good luck!

-Laura

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