Books are tricky to organize because they are useful and enjoyable – sometimes even beautiful but they do take up a lot of space, are heavy, and hard to clean. It is also very hard to find places that accept book donations. We do have a solution for that, which we will get to later.
Books are also very sentimental and since this is part of our series on Kidstuff – we will start off with kid’s books.
There are many memorable moments of hilarious afternoons and peaceful evenings reading to our kids. These times gave us a sense of well-being and fun when we enjoyed books as a family and we all learned things along the way.
Most families have a stockpile of them and they are especially difficult for us sentimental types to let go of. When I pick one up, it resonates with me and I can really feel the moment, even if is 20 or 30 years ago. Having said that – I have 6 bankers boxes filled with them. My kids have taken the most special ones to their places and of course some can be kept here as well. What about all the others? I looked through them a few months ago and I could only let 3 go. I wasn’t ready.
To be fair, I was doing OK with it but through the years all of the special grandparent books were added to our collection as well as our own books from our childhood which added a few more boxes.
We call this “The Layers of Life”.
Step 1. Look through all of them, taking out any books that are not useable or enjoyable.
For example: I edited out some of the truly Grimm fairy tales that frightened me as a child like; The Red Shoes and Little Match Girl. Anything overly ripped or stained went into recycling.
Step 2. Divide up the books using these “Layers” of who they belonged to.
So categories are; Grandparents, Parents and Kids. I also added a Series category, some of which were a mix.
Step 3. Edit each category
KEEP (special books for future use)
GIVE AWAY (to family/donate)
RECYCLE (not useful to anyone)
I tackle the easiest ones first – for me it was the Grandparents books. I kept a few as mementos for future generations.
*NOTE: There were a few that didn’t have too much of an attachment to but were still very cute and enjoyable family books, so I created a pile to “Give Away/Family” adding to baby shower gifts. I did this for the last 2 baby showers and they were a hit. Any that I thought were just OK, can be “Donated”.
Now to EDIT my books (Parents)
– take 5 or 6, lay them out
– pick the most special one
– then pick out the 2nd and 3rd most special ones.
– these go into my KEEP box
– others go into that GIVE AWAY box.
Now to my kids books (Kids) This is the biggest pile. I need smaller piles so I divide into 3 categories; Infant and Toddler, School Age and Teen.
Edit the same way as above.
I set aside any “sets”. I keep the ones that I would for sure like to read to any little ones in the family in the future. Some seemed kinda special but when I re-read a few pages they were just ok. Those go in the Give Away pile.
I am getting somewhere. Just to be on the safe side I show these Give Aways to my kids.
This eases my mind as I do not want to donate anything they might still want. They totally love the idea of other kids using them and now that I see the most special books tucked away in my 3 Keep boxes, so do I. Everyone has the books they truly love.
I divide all the other nice ones in the Give Away box into 2 categories; go to a new home of a family member/friend with a new baby at some point or to be donated. They are also now sorted chronologically to make it easier to find one when I need it.
Where to donate books? We have been working with a fantastic company that picks up books for free and donates them to people in the community who will use them. They do sell some of them and that offsets the cost of the pick-ups – Everyone benefits from this. They are called Second Life Books, to contact; 647 309-0492 www.secondlifebooks.net.
So that is how we dealt with our kids books and it feels absolutely wonderful to have accomplished it!
