How to Organize Hard Cover Children's Books
The U.S. Department of Education recommends reading with your child regularly to teach the value and enjoyment of reading. Its website recommends reading exercises and providing a children's dictionary with pictures to encourage kids to look up words.
Libraries shelve children's hardcover fiction books by age group and alphabetically by the author's last name. The Reading Rocket website recommends organizing non-fiction books for children in bins by topic. For a home library, especially one used by children, create a similar system for a reader-friendly display of hardcover books.
Other People Are Reading
Things You'll Need
- Bins--see-through or basket type that show the book covers
- Self-adhesive labels
- Marking pens in colors
- Bookcases or wall shelves
Instructions
-
-
1
Sort the books on a table or counter. Divide them into fiction and non-fiction groups.
-
2
Stack the hardcover books by subject. Put similar books together. For example, stack mystery books together, car books together, nature books and animal books. Continue sorting by fiction genre and non-fiction topic through all the books.
-
-
3
Divide large groups of books. If there are a number of dog books, stack them separately from the other animal books.
-
4
Organize the books in bins with the covers facing forward. This keeps the books neat and makes it convenient for the children to browse the books.
-
5
Create labels for the book bins in various colors. Get the kids involved in drawing pictures or making borders around the labels.
-
6
Arrange the bins on bookcases or wall shelves by type of book. For example, put fiction by author on one shelf, fiction by genre on another shelf.
-
7
Group bins of books in similar genres and topic together. Place mysteries, adventure books, and international fiction side by side. Place all the nature books on plants, astronomy, minerals, birds, wildlife, ecology, the oceans and other topics about the earth and solar system side by side. Place geography and travel books near nature books and add books about cultures, history, people and occupations to the non-fiction shelf.
-
8
Place reference books such as dictionaries, encyclopedias and other homework helper books together in a prominent location. It helps to have these shelved on a table so children can open the book on the table to use it.
-
1
Tips & Warnings
Shelve the books low enough for the children to reach them.
With the bin system, add more categories as needed.
Provide reading light and comfortable chairs near the children's books to encourage children to use the area for reading and studying.
Use bookplates or a rubber stamp to identify the hardcover children's books as belonging to your library.
Make a rainy-day activity out of sorting books and let the kids help suggest categories.
If you live in an earthquake-prone area, attach bookcases to the wall with earthquake straps available from hardware stores.
Make sure the bookcases or wall shelves are stable and that there's no risk of them falling on the children.
References
- Photo Credit grandfather read book with children image by Pavel Losevsky from Fotolia.com
