How many books do you own?

[arvi]

How many books do you have in your home library? I am right now in the process of creating a home library for us and would like to have some inspiration. And if possible can you suggest the must have children's classics (either as read-aloud or for independent reading).

[Mandabplus3]

This is our home library it is getting very full, I doubt that all the books would fit in if our novels were not two deep. The picture books are my favorite so the kids are spoilt. I only keep beautiful books, I don't like the smell of dusty old books so we avoid them. I like old books just not smelly ones 
We use the library ALOT! At least 20 books a week, with 4 of us reading it's easy to get to 20!
I also keep all my personal stories ( adult novels and non fiction) in digital format, wherever I can. I have over 400 books on my iPad and it just blows me away that so many fit in such a small package when out library is a whole room! Obviously some are better in hard format. A gardening book is no fun without pages to turn!

Hmmm I must have picked the wrong picture code you only get to see half

[Oana86]

Your library looks great Mandabplus3....mine is 1/3 of yours, mainly because we don't have much space (we live in a tiny flat). Back home...at my mom's we have a proper library....3 walls full of books....but in my/our own flat unfortunately I can't fit that many books. My daughter is almost 4 months and I would say I bought for her almost 100 books. I am a genuine bookoholic and my husband constantly moans about buying too many books when we have limited storage place....but I don't think I'll ever have enough.

Maybe one good day we'll be able to have a proper library in a proper room designed just for reading/studying....until then, the only thing I can think of after I run short of my existing library space si to stack them up

[PokerDad]

We just started ours, and I'm guessing that we're pushing around 200 books. So far the two best places to purchase has been the library's bi-annual book sale, and hitting up goodwill. I've used many of the suggestions here on BK in what to look for... can't comment on the best ones, we've yet to be able to gauge a response from any of them since he's not born yet. 

[Skylark]

Do you mean in our home Kids library or our home library?

Our family is really into books. We have full Russian/Ukrainian library with about 2 000 books, of which I would say about 300 are children books

And then we have about 200 children books in English, for English ones we have an opportunity to borrow from library and that makes it so easy, we love it!! I also got many of the english ones at library sales, garage sales and at alibris.com  We did not have those opportunities with Russian books...

[Mandabplus3]

Lol I think. My library needs a tidy up. It's a mess   it does get clean and tidy regularly but all my kids use all the books so it gets messy quickly. My two youngest still struggle with the where to put them system we have. I try to keep all the non fiction together, then encyclopedia types together, the children picture books take up a lot of space ( not in the picture) and we have a basket for baby books, even though we don't have babies anymore my son reads the words in them at times. The top shelves are supposed to be my books but the kids love to read through my cooking and gardening books and this morning I caught my oldest reading "the secret" 
We have a library because  we built this house. I wrote a list of all the rooms i would like in my perfect world and took it around a bunch of builders, one of them said we have that house...almost, let's move this wall and this and whala! Built within budget. We have a couch that fits me and all three kids on it for story time plus a wall of shelves and a few baskets, for library books. Having to keep the library books separate is a bit tricky! We occasionally pay for one that gets lost into our collection. I figure if I pay for one out of 200 I am doing really well. 

[DadDude]

I don't mean to brag...well, yes I do. We have an obscene number of books. I've never counted, but we have six bookcases full of children's books, plus other places in the house where books accumulate, and we need to get another bookcase for our rapidly accumulating chapter books. I doubt H. has read more than some of other kids, however, because you use the library a lot more than we do. Anyway, it's a significant cost outlay (I'm thinking over $1000 per year, but I've never calculated it), so this might not be doable by everyone, but I do feel it is money well spent if you can afford it. Owning the books instead of checking them out makes it possible for us to snatch up a book months before we get around to reading it, re-read it weeks or months after finishing it, review it, etc. We can and do re-use the books with E. as he grows, and the brothers will have a very similar educational background because they will have read the same (literally!) books. Another significant advantage is that if you read a book that you know is yours, it will seem less ephemeral--it joins the family--if that makes sense. The trouble of course is that it's often a huge mess, but you can't avoid that anyway, with small children...

[Skylark]

Loved how you've put it DadDude! That is how I grew up with my parents. Every free wall of the house (literally) was transformed into a book wall. I would not even call those bookshelves or bookcases, because they were custom designed shelves which stretched from wall to wall, all the way to the ceiling. An amazing thing, is that coming to my parent's house I can still intuitively find most of the books  -- high, low and in between 

Having it always there definitely encouraged me to read as a child! And I want the same positive experience for my children. I think it is well worth the investment! But of course, we have moved quite a bit due to work and life changes with our own kids, and so we did not have as much time to collect great library for them, but we are working towards it. In the meantime, we do use public library as well. It does provide some great opportunities. 

[Kimba15]

My husband and I have a huge combined book collection that we have now had to put into storage in massive 100 litre containers and are now protected out in the shed because we have no more room in the house until we get some custom made book shelves our self.

The kids well I borrow approx 120 books per month from the library and have moved sooo many books  into the office which I might turn into a reading room for them. I recently donated a whole heap of baby books to the local day care centre to help them out. It cleared out some of the space but not much. Once S and A have surpassed many of the picture books I will move them on to and keep a library of chapter books only.

I have a book addiction. I love buying books but unfortunately I can't keep everything and I despise clutter.

[A_BC]

Just my 2c about the recommended books, you can check the list from the Starfall Kindergarten curriculum here:

http://more.starfall.com/downloads/N-info-curriculum/AtGlance.php

At home, we have about 300 books and the collection is still growing. The English books are mainly Eric Carle's, DK, Priddy Books, Usbourne and other great classics such as Goodnight Moon, Guess how much I love you, etc.

For the other languages, we have Eric Carle's translated books especially in Spanish and German. The rest of French Books, we have Usborne Easy Reader, and others picked from our trips to France.

We got other Arabic books from Amazon and our trips to the Middle East and North Africa. I usually choose the ones I enjoyed the best during my childhood. There are also translated Eric Carle's and DK publishing books which I love.

[lzp11]

I also have a book addiction!!  I've always loved books - my parents had bookshelves crammed with books in every room. I was very possessive of all my beloved books as a child and we stored them all away in my parents loft. Recently I found about 6 boxes full of my childhood books. Everything from old fashioned Ladybird books to Enid Blyton, little grey rabbit and all the pony stories I used to love. I can't wait to share them with my kids although I will have to hold back on a few very old first editions that I would be too upset to see chewed and torn by heavy toddler hands  

[Tanikit]

We have books in every room of the house (yup, even the kitchen and that does not count cookery books) but I need more bookshelves. We buy a lot of books second hand as it is extremely expensive to buy them here because of import duties and sales taxes and very few decent books are published here. I will however spend money on books I think we need new if I cannot get them anywhere else. Our libraries are pathetic and we can take out very few books - I joined a library in the next town just to increase the amount of books I can get out and it is more than a half hours drive away. It costs more to get them to bring a book from another library to the one closest to us than it costs me to buy second hand books so even that is not really an option. This is not a reading country I live in - here many schools do not even have a library. I think we have 5 full bookshelves in this house but many of my books are stored in my inlaws house and many others are just not in a bookshelf.

[kmum]

Obscene    Yes, that's the right word for the number of books we have too. The library is too inconvenient, so I end up paying late fees, making it just as cheap to buy 2nd hand books. We do spend the money on certain books that I feel are important, as well as most of my two teenagers books are bought new.  Most of what I buy now Is for the kids. I do buy the odd no fiction book for myself, but for fiction books, I just read what my big kids are reading

I probably buy K, my youngest reader about 10 books a week in average. She reads numerous books to herself each day as well as 3 or 4,to me, so it is hard to keep up with her sometimes.

Oh, & shhhhhh...... don't tell my husband that I buy that many books a week. It already frustrates him that we have books overflowing g from every nook, cranny, bookshelf & bin in the house! 

[TeachingMyToddlers]

I love reading myself but have made it a point to limit the number of books I own over the last decade since marrying my husband as we move frequently for his job. I don't like to schlep more than I have to state to state, country to country. But now with kids, forget it! Well into the hundreds I would guess? One of the most talented adult readers I have ever met (who "absorbs" books practically, you could nearly call it speed reading but not exactly) said while growing up his parents kept a giant closet that had shelves floor to ceiling with books just overflowing everywhere. He would spend hours and hours lost in that closet.    I have been meaning to go through and purge some outgrown books this week, this thread is a good reminder.

[TheyCan]

We have hundreds.  For the last three years, I've constantly made purchases on Amazon.  My son thought the UPS guy was the book man .  I haven't bought any in the last couple of months though because I've been on a minimalist and money saving kick.  We use the library like we always have - I just don't go purchase the boooks from the library that I fall in love with anymore (instead I make a "library wishlist" on Amazon so I can remember to check them out again).  I put the majority of our bookcases and books in the boy's closets.  There are still plenty of books out in the open, but the mess has been greatly reduced (not to mention our wallets are a tad thicker...).  I don't think it's impacted my son's reading - but if it does, I'll certainly change things up.  I'll also make a purchase sometime here with some books that I can't get at the library.  I'm really hoping to utilize a kindle when my boys are older - but I don't know at what point/age a kindle is a good alternative to actual books.  I have to say though, I get pretty excited when I open the closet doors !     

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