CHILDREN'S BOOKS

My husband built 3 bookcases for our children's books. They are organized by general subject, the reference books higher up, picture books lower and more accessible, and they are all labeled on the spine with a color. Each shelf contains a different category of books, and the basket on the shelf contains chapter books in that category.

The categories of children's books, by row, are:

Bottom Row:
These are books that are most easily accessible for the kids. The kids love to pull them off the shelf and look at the pictures by themselves.

• YELLOW: Special Authors (Seuss, dePaola, Carle, Scarry)
• ORANGE: Classics & Modern Picture Books (Books like Blueberries for Sal, Velveteen Rabbit, Frog & Toad, Raggedy Ann & Andy, etc.)
• RED: Folktales, Fairy Tales, Myths & Legends

Second Row (from bottom):
These are also books that are easily accessible. I want them to be able to reach these wonderful religous stories whenever they want!

• NEON PURPLE: Bibles & Bible Stories
• NEON GREEN: Religion Picture Books (Stories about faith, God, Jesus, the Sacraments, virtue, etc).
• NEON BLUE: Saints & Mary | NEON PINK: Prayer & Devotionals

Third Row:
The third and fourth rows contain books in all major subjects (math/science/social studies/language arts/fine arts). We have reference books and we have story books about historical figures, artists, and musicians. To give you a frame of reference, the Magic School Bus books would be filed under Science & Math Picture Books. They are still low enough for my older kids to reach if they want to flip through and look at the pictures.

• LIGHT BLUE: Social Studies Picture Books
• LIGHT GREEN: Science & Math Picture Books
• DARK RED: Language Arts Reference Books | LIGHT PINK: Language Arts Picture Books (including poetry, foreign languages)

Fourth Row:
I specifically put the reference books higher up on the bookcases so that the little ones don't pull these down. Helps reduce the clutter. When they're old enough to really read and utilize those, they can reach the shelves.

• DARK BLUE: Social Studies Reference Books
• DARK GREEN: Science & Math Reference Books
• DARK PURPLE: Art & Music Reference Books | LIGHT PURPLE: Art & Music Picture Books

Top Row:
I pull these books out only on special occasions. They are books that the kids don't need to take down.

• WHITE: Special Occasions (Advent/Christmas, Lent/Easter, St. Valentines Day, St. Patrick's Day, Birthdays, books about America, etc.)
• LIGHT ORANGE: Religion Reference Books

Above is a picture of the colors and categories. I apologize for the poor picture quality! Almost each shelf has a color-coordinated box where I keep chapter books. Each chapter book is labeled on the spine with the same color as the picture books and I added gold tape to signify "Chapter Book" so the kids know where to put them away.

About the Colored Labels
To label each book, I simply cut strips of colored paper and used reguar scotch tape. Simple, but it has worked surprisingly well. The kids understand each book has a particular place. I wasn't sure if color-coding the books would help keep them organized and easy to browse, but I've found that this works a lot better than I thought. Our oldest knows what type of book to find on each shelf. For example, she knows that the Richard Scarry books are yellow (one of her favorites)! And even if the kids cannot quite slide the books onto the shelf properly when they clean up, they can stick the book on the appropriate shelf (horizontally) so I can file them later. I also keep a little file envelope of extra colored paper strips in case we need to add books to our collection.

CHAPTER BOOKS

In the kids' room upstairs, opposite the large bookcases, we have a small bookcase for kids' chapter books. These aren't subject specific (otherwise they would go in one of the boxes on the large bookcase.. They are different series, from the Little House on the Prairie books, Anne of Green Gables, to the Hobbit/Lord of the Rings, Hank the Cowdog, Rangers Apprentice, and other pleasure reads. They are sorted into abridged illustrated classics, girls' series, girls' chapter books, boys' series, boys' chapter books, and unabridged classics.

ADULT BOOKS

In our oratory (aka our living room), we have bookshelves, again, that my husband so generously built, for all of the adult books. I would guess that about 95% of these books are his (he's the bibliofile/former seminarian/English major) and 90% of them are Catholic. See my post about the bookshelves he built here. These books are organized by category as well. Some of the categories include: fiction, non-fiction, anthologies, family read-alouds, philosophy, Christology, apologetics, patristics, family life, vocations, Church history, prayer, bibles, music, history, the saints & Mary, reference, etc.

BOARD BOOKS

We have crates underneath the adult bookshelves that are filled with board books. The littlest kids have full access to these crates. They can reach in and look at these books whenever they want, and we don't worry that they will destry anything. We keep the children's "ripping books" (my kids call books with paper pages) upstairs in the big kids' room. We do have to train the littlest ones not to pull mommy & daddy's books off the first shelf, but they rarely mess with them because they find their crates of books right below. At one time we kept toys in one of the crates, but now we have a little basket beside the couch for those.