Home Library Ideas You’ll Love: Create a Family Reading Nook
If you have the option, storing all of your family’s books in one accessible place can be a wonderful way to encourage your children (and yourself!) to read more. In this post, I’ll share some ideas for creating a cozy home library your whole family will love.
This post contains affiliate links. See my full disclosure here.
My son in our home library.
“Reading Nook” vs. “Home Library”
If you search “reading nook for kids” on the internet, you’ll find countless cute corners, decorated with string lights and little kid-sized tents. (I mean, come on…how cute are these star-shaped string lights and this little tent?!) There are reading nooks in cupboards under the stairs (shout out to my boy Harry), in bedrooms, and in converted closets. I pinned a dozen or so when I was pregnant with my oldest child. Yet as much as I LOVE the idea of a cozy reading spot of that kind, I haven’t set one up in my own home. For now anyway, reading is an activity we do together, and it’s much more comfortable to cuddle up and read on a couch.
Still, there are elements of this kind of reading nook in what I call our “home library” (pictured above). I’ve intentionally selected comfy seating and window coverings that let in plenty of light on sunny days. But the books are by far the most important part of a home library.
My husband is a high school teacher and I am a former high school teacher, so we have a lot of books. For a long time, they were stored all over our home, tucked into corners and stacked on our bedside tables. If a friend asked to borrow my copy of something, I had to look in 4 or 5 different places to find it. Now, almost all of our books line the floor-to-ceiling shelves in a small room off of our entryway. It has become my favorite room in the house–a “family reading nook.”
If you’d like to create a similar space in your home, you’ll need:
- Shelves
- While I dream of built-ins, my Billy bookcases with height extensions from Ikea have held up just fine for more than 10 years. (not sponsored)
- Seating
- Comfort is key. The blue chair is the prettiest seat in the room, but hardly anyone sits there because it isn’t cozy.
- Lighting
- I used to have faux wood blinds in this room, but unless they were open, it was too dark to read. Since the windows face the street, these inexpensive light-filtering shades from Ikea are better. They let light through while maintaining privacy. (not sponsored)
- You can hardly see it in the photo above, but there’s also a lamp next to the chair. I love this ceramic one and this cordless option.
- Blankets and pillows
- As many books as you can get your hands on!
You might be thinking…
Why should I keep all of my family’s books together?
Personally, I am a bit of a minimalist and I’ve consumed a lot of content–books and otherwise–about the benefits of owning less. (If you’re interested in family minimalism, I highly recommend Simplicity Parenting.) As I’ve simplified our home, I’ve found that storing like items together is a powerful way to reduce clutter.
While I do have a few books strategically placed in other parts of our home, the “library” is our designated book space. Each room in our home has a designated purpose, and I try to store items accordingly. My 3-year-old son’s bedroom contains very few toys (mostly plush) and no books at all. He’s allowed to take books into his room, of course, but if I find them in there when I tuck him in at bedtime, I return them to the home library. As a result, his room feels calm and conducive to sleep.
The main reason I keep all of our books together, though, is that by doing so, my children can see that there’s a world of reading beyond picture books. Right now, they are small, but as my kids grow, I know they will start exploring and learning on their own. Already, my 3-year-old son flips through The Boxcar Children and The Chronicles of Narnia. We aren’t quite ready for those stories, but he glows with anticipation when I tell him that we’ll read them together when he gets a little older. He also sees my copies of works by Shakespeare and Shelley, Orwell and Austen, collected over years of studying and teaching English Literature. And he sees his daddy’s collection of Bibles, commentaries, and History textbooks. Much to read, much to learn.
How many books should a child have? Is there such a thing as too many books?
Growing up with books definitely impacts children’s future academic success. According to this study, “the difference between being raised in a bookless home compared to being raised in a home with a 500-book library has as great an effect on the level of education a child will attain as having parents who are barely literate (3 years of education) compared to having parents who have a university education (15 or 16 years of education).” Children from book-rich homes attained an average of 3.2 additional years of schooling.
That said, 500 is not a magic number. The same study showed that having even 20 books in the home is beneficial, and while the general consensus is that more is better, there is still such a thing as too many books. Books–especially those that are out of place–add to the visual noise in your home and can contribute to a general feeling of chaos. The way you store and manage books matters.
The exact number of books your family “should” own depends on a lot of factors, but here are some things to think about:
- You can limit your book collection based on the space you have available.
- Even if your collection is a lot smaller (or bigger!) than mine, what matters most is that it is accessible, preferably on shelves. A huge book collection stored in Rubbermaid totes isn’t doing anyone any favors.
- You can get rid of most–or maybe all–books that are below your child’s current skill/interest level.
- If you don’t plan on having any more kids, there’s no sense keeping 100 board books for your kindergartener. Choose a few of your absolute favorites and keep them on the shelf for when friends or family members with younger children visit, then give the rest away. This frees up space for growth.
- You can declutter books you (or your kids) don’t like or don’t want to read again.
- My husband and I have gone through the books on our shelves several times. The books that are still there are ones we haven’t read yet (I’m so guilty of this), ones we want to revisit, or ones we would love for our kids to read one day.
- Frivolous novels I bought in airports and books I read in college but hated didn’t make the cut. I’m never reading them again and I wouldn’t recommend them to my children, so I pitched them.
- I’ve also gotten rid of children’s books that I just. don’t. like. If I have to suppress a groan and an eye roll every time my 3-year-old hands it to me, out it goes. He has occasionally noticed when a book disappears, but he has never cared. He just picks something else.
- You can do whatever YOU want–it’s your home library! Don’t let me boss you around! 🙂
If you think you have too many children’s books, you might benefit from this video by Dawn from The Minimal Mom (her content is literally life-changing…I suggest subscribing to her YouTube channel today!):
How do you manage a large collection of children’s books?
Even if you adopt the home library strategy, I recommend pulling out a few books to keep in other places. For example, our library is downstairs but our bedrooms are upstairs, so bedtime stories don’t “live” in the library. Instead, we keep about a dozen current favorites next to the couch in our upstairs loft. Our playroom has a small crate of books as well. I shared more about this in another post.
One more tip I have is to store seasonal books with seasonal decorations. Last year, I packed up all of our Christmas books in the same box as our tree ornaments. Now I look forward to decorating and bringing out all of our festive books!
My most important suggestion is to try to store toys separately from books. If your home library will be in the same room as your child’s toy collection, consider putting a plush rug in front of the bookshelves to designate it as a separate “book zone.” Tidying up a pile that only contains books is MUCH easier than cleaning up a mixed pile. If you’re in the thick of toddlerhood and this sounds like a fool’s errand, I understand, but if you’re willing to give it a try, I think your child(ren) might surprise you. Speaking of which…
Don’t kids make a mess in the library?
The mess in the library could be huge, but it isn’t usually. Because we’ve practiced together, my 3-year-old only takes out one or two books at a time. He also knows how to put his books back on the correct shelves. They are sometimes upside down, but I don’t always fix that. Having our home library set up this way allows him to practice responsibility.
My 1-year-old is more of a mess-maker. Still, he knows which books are for him, so cleaning up is usually just a matter of scooping all of the board books and copies of Curious George back onto the bottom two shelves. There are definitely days where I find myself clearing the floor in the library 5 or 6 times, but as long as I do it at least once (usually with help from the 3-year-old), it stays under control.
What if I don’t have many books in my home right now? How can I build a book collection for my kids?
Your library doesn’t have to be huge to be helpful, but if you’d like to expand your collection of books, here are a few ideas:
- Ask family members and friends. My sister-in-law’s kids are all 9+ years older than mine, so she gave me several boxes of books that her children had outgrown.
- Check out garage sales, thrift stores, or Facebook marketplace.
- Look for a Little Free Library in your neighborhood. We have one down the street from us and when we are done with a book, that’s usually where I take it. I’ve found some gems to add to our collection as well.
- Make a routine of checking out books from your local library. We love going to the library and we typically check out five books at a time. We can keep them for three weeks, and we often check out the same titles more than once. (This year, we’ve been checking out Harry the Dirty Dog and Blueberries For Sal on repeat.)
