Books & More Books

I love books. I've always loved to read since I can remember. I just love curling up with a good book & escaping away for awhile. When I started homeschooling my sons five years ago, I started collecting children's books in earnest. My absolute favorite place to shop for used books is the Read It Again Yahoo group run by Chris. Oh my - it can be sometimes downright dangerous & the size of the boxes that arrive! I tend to unpack them quickly before my hubby gets home. LOL

Well, when you live in a small space like I do, storage can sometimes be a bit difficult. We already have two five shelf bookcases in our living room. One is for my hubby's books (yes, I married a fellow reader) & one is for mine. They are both packed. Then there are two smaller bookcases - one has only two shelves & one is a homemade three shelf. My oldest son has another three shelf in his room. The little boys used to have the homemade one in their room, but I was getting tired of constantly picking up books & putting them back on the shelf.

A few days ago I decided it was time to cull the books. They were starting to take over way too many surfaces & there were just too many piled hither & yon in the trailer. Boxes were everywhere & I had no clue what I owned. Okay, so I'll confess this was a two-fold project - the books really were getting out of hand, however, on the 14th our big homeschool association (the one that puts on the convention each year) is hosting their used book sale. I started going two years ago & I absolutely LOVE it. Fabulous deals, tons of books, curriculum & readers - it's too good to pass up. So I began to organize. I had already started this earlier in the year but I was determined to get it finished.

My "before" photos

So for the last three days I have been typing in a list of all the children books. I am including the ISBN number, subject (science, reader, history, etc.), title, author, & location. Now I know the location may not stay the same, but I'm hopeful. Of course, some locations are simply, "black crate in living room." ::grin::

"After" - the bookcase in the kitchen. The second shelf is all science & the bottom shelf holds the other quarter that wouldn't fit on the second shelf. The rest on the bottom is poetry, language arts, & Bible.

Aforementioned "black crate" that holds history. The white bin beside it (over sized dish pan) holds more history. The large white bin at the end is all art.

One of the bookcases in the living room. On the top are my smaller scrapbooks, chapter books are on the first shelf & you can see the tops of all my scrapbooks that are on the bottom shelf.

I have finally finished my list. I have pulled a large amount to some how get rid of. I still need to go through all my accumulated curriculum & make decisions on what is going to be kept & what I'm going to get rid of. Tough calls will have to be made.

Final book count, by the way, is 725 books - that includes a set of Childcraft books & a few other reference books but not the full set of old encyclopedias I have shoved under the entertainment system. ::grin:: Now I just need to tackle the rather large pile of curriculum I have hanging around & the school papers that were generated this year. It just never ends does it??


Needless to say, I love books, but the best part of it all - so do my kids.