How to Organize Your Kids’ Books: Cut the Clutter and Raise Avid Readers

Do you find yourself constantly picking up your children’s books? Is your bookshelf a disorganized mess with no rhyme or reason to it? Learn how to organize your kids’ books so they can learn to enjoy reading. And so you don’t go crazy with the mess.

We have tons of books

In our home, we probably have between three and five hundred books between all of us. I’m not joking.

This is what happens to a family when the mother is a bookworm.

As a child, I loved to read. I devoured books because I just couldn’t get enough of the stories. My poor mom, wanting to spend some quality girl-time with her tween daughter, took me shopping and was disappointed when I sat on the floor of the dressing room with a book while she tried on clothes.

It was a problem, people. So much so that my mom put a limit on how many books we could check out at the library each week. I think she tired of keeping track of how many books we needed to return. To curb the problem, she only let us check out as many books as years old we were. So when I was eight, I got to check out eight books. And I was always so excited for my birthday because that meant I could check out one more book from the library. Nerdy, I know.

Naturally, my personal book collection grew, and I entered my marriage with a mini library.

My husband became a bookworm as an adult

My husband did not share my love of reading when we first started dating. I was convinced it was because he hadn’t found anything he actually enjoyed reading, so I didn’t stop pestering him until we found something he liked.

Once he discovered that reading for pleasure is infinitely better than reading for school, he couldn’t stop. So our little library grew even more as he added to the collection.

Obviously, we are raising our son to love books, too

We know the importance of helping children develop an interest in reading, but our collection of children’s books was limited. So when we were pregnant with Little Man, we asked our friends and family for books instead of cards at our baby shower. We didn’t care if they were new or used, we just wanted the opportunity for our loved ones to help cultivate a love of reading in our little one.

And let me tell you, they went above and beyond! We received tons of books, and we couldn’t have been more grateful. Many of our friends and family wrote a little note on the inside cover, and I made sure to write who gave each book so we would remember for years to come.

Why it’s important to organize your kids’ books

Perhaps you’re thinking, Brianna, you don’t know my kids. There’s no point to organizing their books because they will just mess them up five seconds after I finish. And you’re partially correct. Messes will happen. Your toddler is just a little too quiet, and you peek around the corner to find he’s taken every single book off the shelves.

Ultimately, less mess

But part of organizing your kids’ books is getting them involved in the process so they learn to respect and take care of them. Even though my thirteen-month-old sometimes pulls all the books off the shelf, he’s learning how to put them back the right way. I let him look at the books he wants to, and then when it’s time to clean up, I involve him by showing him where they go. Just the other day, I saw my efforts pay off as he started putting them away without my help.

Cultivate love of reading

Another reason to organize your kids’ books is so they learn to enjoy reading. Think of it like shopping: you probably don’t enjoy shopping in a store that’s messy and disorganized. Choosing a book to read is exactly like shopping. Your child is more apt to want to read if they can easily find a book they’re interested in.

How to organize kids’ books: my process

There are many ways to organize kids’ books, but today I’m sharing what works for our family at the moment. Eventually, I’d like to incorporate the Dewey Decimal system, but it’s not practical for our current circumstances.

First, sort by age range/reading level

My mom cleaned out her garage not long ago and gave me a gazillion more books to add to our collection. She homeschooled my brothers and me when we were kids, so she had quite a few books. Since I plan to homeschool Little Man, I took advantage of this. The books vary in age range and reading level, I first determined the reading level sorted them in the following categories:

Baby and toddler books

This collection includes board and cloth books and very easy picture books. I put these books on the lowest shelf so they are easily accessible for my little guy. Because the majority of these books are sturdy, I don’t worry about him tearing the pages.

Preschool

This collection includes picture books that are a little more advanced, but not quite elementary-level. These go on the next shelf from the bottom. I still read these books to Little Man, but I try not to let him handle them unsupervised just yet.

Elementary

These books include more advanced picture books and easy chapter books. We don’t pull too often from this collection, because Little Man doesn’t usually sit still long enough to finish them. So they go on the third shelf from the bottom.

Teen

This collection is books for kids sixth grade and up. Right now, it includes mostly books that I kept from my little library growing up, so they don’t get much use at the moment. But I have room on the shelves and no other place to store them at the moment, so I’m fine with them collecting dust for a few years.

Second, organize your kids’ books by category

After sorting the books by reading level, organize them on their respected shelves based on category. The baby and preschool books likely don’t need much sorting, but I believe it’s a good idea to sort the other reading levels using the following categories:

• Animals/nature:
• Science
• History/social studies
• Fiction
• Art/crafts

You can even organize your kids’ books even further by making some little category dividers with some pretty file folders and a marker. This helps your reading kiddos know where to return the books.

Third, narrow down the categories even further

You decide how much detail you want, but I organized a few of our categories down a little further. For example, I organized the fiction books into historical, fantasy, sci-fi, and action and adventure. We also have a special shelf for devotions, Bibles, and other Christian books.

Finally, label those shelves!

This isn’t super important to me just yet because Little Man can’t read, but it helps to cultivate the habit. Use washi tape and a marker on the edges of the shelves so your kids know which shelf to return their book to.

Ok, mama! Get to it! Organize your kids books this week so you don’t have a mental breakdown when you look at that messy shelf. Spend a little time figuring out which books are age-appropriate. Sort them by genre so your kids can easily find what they want to read. And most of all, have fun with it and cultivate a love for reading in your little ones.

How do you organize your kids’ books? We would love to hear about it in the comments! And be sure to check out the post about my best organization tips for moms.