6 Tips for Decluttering Bookshelves
At the end of the summer, as we were preparing for homeschool to start (a new adventure for our family this year!), I did a long-overdue decluttering of our big kids bookshelf in our basement.
When I mentioned it on Instagram, I got a flood of questions about how decluttering books and how I decide which books to keep or get rid of.
For reference, this bookshelf is a decade old from IKEA – we’ve assembled and reassembled it in every house we’ve lived in since then.
I don’t have a fancy system for decluttering my bookshelves. When I go through the bookshelves, I start on one shelf and go book by book. Every book either stays on the shelf, gets pulled to donate or put on another shelf.
Books that we don’t love, likely won’t return to many times, or are in bad shape get pulled to be donated or recycled.
Here are my 6 best tips for decluttering books:
- Try starting with the “absolutely must keep” books. If I’m going through my bookshelves, there are books that I don’t have to spend one second deciding about. My battered copy of Number the Stars that was the first chapter book I read as a child? Of COURSE I’m keeping it! Once you’ve pulled all the books you absolutely must keep and put them back on the shelf, you can start weeding through the other books and decide whether they’re worth keeping or not.
- Choose an organizational system that makes sense to you. You can alphabetize books by author or do a rainbow color system. For me, I group fiction and non-fiction picture books together, have chapter books together, and keep series together. It doesn’t have to work for anyone but you and your family!
- Your bookshelf should reflect YOU. I get asked all the time about what books I think every family should own. And the answer is basically none – every reader is unique and your bookshelves should reflect the books and topics and genres that speak to you and your family.
- Remember that books are not all created equal. Just because it is a book doesn’t mean it is worth keeping. Some books are better (MUCH better!) than others and books can create clutter and disorder just like any other physical object. A book that you’ve never particularly loved and that your kids don’t gravitate toward likely doesn’t need to take up space in your house.
- Remember that more books isn’t necessarily better. Do you want more than 2 books? Probably. But having thousands of books is overwhelming to most readers, especially young readers. Keeping things curated makes them more likely to get picked up and read!
- It’s better to send a book to where it will be used than to keep it unloved on your shelf. There are SO MANY families and classrooms that would love your books and appreciate them. Keeping them on your shelf because you feel guilty about spending money on them doesn’t do anyone good. Move them along to someone who will be thrilled to get them!
Here are some of the questions that came in about decluttering books:
How do you decide what to keep/ what to donate or toss?
There’s not perfect solution but for me, I basically am looking to keep our books within the space we have available (meaning that if we’re getting too many books to fit our bookshelves, some HAVE to go!) and to keep the books that have been most loved in our home. If it was a fun read once or twice but not a beloved favorite and we don’t have space for it, it is okay for it to be moved along.
Should we get rid of baby board books as we get older?
Totally up to you! When we moved into our current house and my youngest was 4, I went through all our board books and kept only my favorites and then put them on the very highest shelf in my office. It really depends on how much space you have and how meaningful they are for you. (If you’re curious, here are the ones I kept!)
Do I keep simple board books for when my daughter starts to read? Or do I get rid of them?
Frankly, I don’t think board books are worth keeping for that reason. Board books aren’t designed to be read by beginning readers – they’re meant to be read by adults to babies – so they generally aren’t ultra fun for kids to read to themselves and they aren’t designed for beginning readers. Keep them because you love them, but not because they’ll be super useful for reading practice.
I’m so sentimental. Is it hard for you to get rid of books you and your kids have loved?
Let me be clear – I’m not getting rid of every book. I absolutely keep the books I love or my kids have loved. What I’m doing is clearing out the books that DON’T fall into that category so that we have room to keep the ones we DO love.
I don’t clean them out. I love going through my parents/grandparent’s books and I hope my kids will too.
I totally get this and I’m glad my parents have kept books from my childhood. But that doesn’t mean it would have been useful for my parents to keep thousands and thousands of books – that is too overwhelming! I loved that my grandmother had a very select collection of books that my dad and his siblings had loved and we loved reading those when we came to visit. But too many books doesn’t serve anyone. I personally think curation is key – keep the best of the best so they don’t have to wade through a bunch of meh books to find the good stuff!
What if they’re sentimental – or written in – like a birthday gift or Christmas gift?
The bad news is that only you can decide about this. Is it worth keeping or is your shelf space more valuable than a book that was gifted but you don’t care about?
Do you have keepsake books that you won’t part with, even if no one reads them anymore?
Oh absolutely! None of my girls have seemed very interested in Redwall, but they were my FAVORITE books growing up and I’m never getting rid of my set!
What about books that don’t get read often? My kids are way more into library books than those on our shelf.
This is COMMON! Library books are new and fun and I love that the library pays for them and stores them! If you have unloved books sitting on your shelf, give your books the gift of being appreciated by others and give yourself the gift of book shelf space!
Do you involve kids? My #1 will keep all books and #2 will give away all.
Generally no. I know pretty well which books they care about and read and love and I’m not trying to get rid of those.
Do you try to repair damaged books?
Nope.
Best way to donate?
You can see if your local library does a book sale as a fundraiser (it is very unlikely your library will take your books and put them on the shelf), check to see if teachers at your local school want books for their classroom libraries, donate them to a thrift store or any of these other options here!
How do you store paperbacks so they don’t get lost on the the shelves?
I avoid picture book paperbacks for exactly this reason. If you do have some, use a magazine holder to corral them!
How do I decide what books to purge? I spent so much time curating a library my kids didn’t ever read
It is always uncomfortable when reality is different from what you imagined. Now that you are living in the reality of what your kids read rather than what you thought might be thrilling to them, you can start working to curate a library that works for YOUR family. Someone else will be thrilled to get those books.
What to do for books you hope for/want them to read but they don’t want/not ready to read?
I usually keep them if they feel important to me! I love having books ready to grab when the moment is right!
How to help kids be willing to let go of books? Mine want to keep everything.
Frankly, since one of my biggest goals is to help my kids be lifelong readers, I don’t push them to get rid of books they love. Kids don’t have the option usually to go buy new books and things they own feel really valuable. You can talk together about how you might not be able to get more books because you don’t have space, but if they’re dead set on keeping everything, then I’d do my best to make that work and rely more on the library instead of buying lots of new books if space is an issue.
What to do with books that are too damaged to donate?
I’d recycle them or use the pages for paper crafts.
Any other questions or suggestions for decluttering books? I’d love to hear!
