Being a mother of two young children, I have always worked to make sure that they both have full access to their own set of books at any given time. I find great comfort in reading and my older daughter, Maggie, almost five, can often be found reading in her room.
My younger daughter, Audrey, a two year old, tends to ‘read’ books at a much quicker pace, and is a bit more reckless with how she treats them. We keep a bin of board books in the living room that she can keep organized in her own way and can help by putting them away when they’re done. Although she’s only two, she has favorite books and favorite authors. I have a bin of board books in the garage that I rotate for her.
In Maggie’s room, we have a bookshelf that I scored for free when she was a baby that has proven to be one of our best places to store her books. I wallpapered the back of it and it has been full of books ever since. Every couple months we go through it and weed out books we’re done with, forgot about, or are ready to give away.
We try to read chapter books at night time and some of my old favorites I keep on Maggie’s dresser, away from two-year old hands.
Library books tend to have a floating life in our home, depending on how great of a book it is or where we last read it. Maggie’s school is near the local library so we go there with great frequency and this means that we’re often hauling books in and out of the house. For the most part we keep the books on her bedside table and back in to our library bag when we’re done with them. That way they don’t get too lost.
In our living room we have a bin of seasonal books that hold special books. I have bins in our garage that I use to rotate at appropriate times. It’s always an exciting day when we change out these seasonal books because it means new books……or at least books we haven’t seen in a year.
To me, books should be getting read, thumbed through and loved. I find great comfort in walking into somebody’s home and seeing that they’re readers. There are books on every subject, and there are also books written for all ages. This is just how we have books in our home for little people.