Unless You are My Clone This Will Probably Be Very Boring

"A home without books is a body without soul." - Cicero

"There are many little ways to enlarge your child's world. Love of books is the best of all." - Jacqueline Kennedy

"A house isn't a home until there is a bookshelf in every room." - Matt, making fun of me, when I eagerly accepted three new bookshelves from his workplace after they moved offices.

So. Way back in December I had what I thought would be a fun idea for a post... a bookshelf tour of our home. I walked around the day after Christmas taking photos of all the bookshelves in our house. And then I never posted them. Don't know why inspiration has hit me again but this time I'm going to do it. I realize that this may be of no interest to you whatsoever, but maybe someday the kids will get a kick out of it, so here I go:

I'm going to work from the basement, up through the living areas, into the bedrooms.

This is Matt's bookshelf in his basement office, it is one of the shelves we accepted from his workplace move. Not terribly exciting (because the others will fascinate you, I'm sure), but I've included it in the interest of full disclosure.

This is another bookshelf in the basement office, it was left here by the people who lived here before us! It holds some of my school binders, teacher workbook type things, the set of Little House Books that were mine and Shannon's growing up, books designated as holiday/seasonal that I rotate into a basket upstairs, and some science and social studies books that the kids aren't really old enough to be interested in yet.

Above is another basement bookshelf left behind by the previous owners. It contains chapter books from my own childhood as well as some I collected while I was teaching. There are a couple of dozen Nancy Drew Files there, as well as almost every Beverly Cleary book, books by L. M. Montgomery, Dick King-Smith, Roald Dahl, The Chronicles of Narnia, non-Baby Sitter Club books by Ann M. Martin, a few titles from a series called Freshman Year, and lots of other misc. books mostly acquired through Scholastic and Troll book orders.

This bookshelf was handed down from my friend MaryEllen. It contains an assortment of books I've read and loved (some Jane Green, Jennifer Weiner Katrina Kittle, Laurie Halse Anderson, the Traveling Pants and YaYas books) but there are also some random things on here, like my bin of tutoring materials (bottom shelf) and a baby names book.

This shelf is probably the most wonderful and most embarrassing because the three shelves of books that are open? Those are my Baby-Sitters Club books. I have all the regular and super special editions and the twelve "Friends Forever" books. I also have the first few mysteries, but I drew the line at collecting those. I had about half of these when I was sort of the age to read them and then I collected the rest in more recent years. Gotta love used books! And yes, I will be getting myself a copy of the newly-written BSC prequel.

On top of the BSC books are bins containing series for young readers: Henry and Mudge, Mr. Putter and Tabby, Amelia Bedelia, Frog and Toad, Franklin, Arthur, Nate the Great, A to Z Mysteries, The Magic Treehouse, and Poppleton.

This bookshelf has been mine since I was in grade school, it is in the family room of our house. It contains several hundred picture books I acquired while teaching elementary school. The bins on the bottom shelf hold easy reader books.

Remembering that these pictures were taken at holiday time, the basket w/ the red liner is full of our Christmas books. There are also Christmas books in the basket w/ the brown liner, but that is the basket that is always there and I rotate seasonal books in and out of it. The other baskets hold puzzles (always there) and Christmas movies (only there during the holidays).

This is a big, beautiful bookshelf which Matt's parents gave us when Matt moved into our first house (It had been in their house as Matt grew up). I love it and it fits perfectly on the wall between the living room windows and the dining room windows. It holds mostly Matt's books, our photo albums (top shelf), and a few miscellaneous items, including the huge American Heritage Dictionary I got for Christmas one year. The shelf that is covered with holiday decorations usually holds framed family photos.


This is in the "foyer" and is another of the book shelves we got from Matt's workplace. The basket on the bottom holds some of Michael's odd sized board books. There are also books on the second shelf. The top shelf is our children's music collection (I know it's almost as bad as the books!) and on the very top sits our Christmas CDs, seasonally, of course.

As you've seen before, here is the bookshelf in Michael's room. He's had a birthday since this picture was taken so his book collection has grown a bit.


This is the first of Harper's bookshelves made for her by her godfather. Uncle Joe made this one when Harper was just a baby. It used to hold her books, but she was outgrowing it - now it holds the containers for a handful of toys we keep in her room and has been replaced by...

This beautiful bookshelf! Also made by Uncle Joe. Her collection was thinned a bit when we passed the board books along to Michael, but she's not really hurting for books now, is she? I keep the kids' books in their own spaces.

This is the third bookshelf that we got from Matt's workplace. It is in our bedroom - I was so happy to have a bookshelf in our room! The books on this shelf are all mine, or books I've borrowed from my friend MaryEllen (whose collection outdoes even ours) and intend to read. Most of the books on the top shelf are things I have yet to read, but the bottom two selves hold quite an assortment, including my held-together-with-a-rubber-band copy of Ballet Shoes, one of my all time favorites.

So there you go, a bookshelf tour of our home. The shelves are pruned periodically and books donated or passed along in other ways. And of course new acquisitions are always welcome. It's a wonder we use the library isn't it? But, then again, we really can't own all the books. (Matt would probably say that it doesn't stop me from trying.)

P.S. I would like it if you did your own bookshelf pictures and shared them with me!