Yes, you can declutter your books. Before you say, “Nope, not doing it,” please stick around. It might not be as painful as you think!
I love books. I cram them onto as many bookshelves as I can fit into my home. They are literally squeezed in on the shelves. No bookshelf decor for me. I don’t have an inch to waste!
The pandemic started a whole new level of book clutter for me. When the libraries shut down, I started unapologetically buying books online. I bought used books for myself, and I even found a book dealer who sent boxes of 40-50 chapter books at a time for kids. If I couldn’t get to a library, I was bringing the library to us.
We started a steady rotation of books in our neighborhood’s tiny lending library. Having books after a bit of a dry spell was great, until the libraries opened up again, and then, we realized we had a lot of book clutter!
Add in homeschooling, and we had books hidden in every nook and cranny in our home.
By that first summer, our shelves were overflowing but our book-buying habits hadn’t slowed. My shelves were telling me “Enough!” but I didn’t listen. It was when books were spilling over to the floor that I realized we had an issue.
Think about all the places where your home houses books right now. Are your shelves overflowing? Do you have crazy-looking stacks of books? Maybe you have books on the floor. This is your sign that it is time to declutter your books.
I love a fantastic read as much as the next person, but there can be too much of a good thing. If your love for books is making you feel cluttered, messy, or even unaccomplished (hello unread books), then take this as your signal to make a change.
You can keep books. Simply keep the books you have the space for in your home. As with anything else, if you want to keep more than what you have the space for, then it’s time to declutter something else to make room!
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Getting rid of books is hard. I’ll be the first to admit it!
You see, when you get rid of books, it means admitting you will not be taking the time to read or use the books you bought any longer.
It means feeling guilt for the money spent on books never read or letting go of books you love but will honestly never use or read again.
Yet, think about it. If you have books sitting on a shelf, who is enjoying them?
We had books sitting in boxes for years collecting dust! Books are meant to be read, not collecting dust!
Getting rid of books meant admitting I would never make the recipes I dreamed of making from my beloved collection of cookbooks or never making time to read the books I knew I would one day enjoy.
Getting rid of book clutter meant guilt and a feeling of defeat. It also meant letting go of dreams of one day making time for me, whether to relax or to make myself better.
Ridding myself of book clutter meant letting go of dollars spent but never using those dollars. I hated it.
If you feel any of these awful emotions, it is totally normal!
When I decided to declutter our books, it took some time.
It might as well have been categorized up there with getting rid of sentimental clutter. It was an emotional drain, and it didn’t all happen in one decluttering session.
Related Post: Why is Decluttering so Hard?
First, commit to touching every book you own. Yes, actually pick them up and hold each one.
Touch each book in your collection. Flip through it. Be honest with yourself about your intentions with the book.
Then, start with the genre of books you care the least about emotionally. Then, move on to the next genre.
Going through all your books by category will make sifting through them easier. Have a box (or three) ready to put any unwanted books in there.
I recommend smaller boxes. Books are heavy!
Before you start going through all your book clutter, it is best to know what kind of storage space you are working with and your end goal.
Do you want to have only one shelf of books? An entire bookcase? An entire room?
As our reading interests have grown over the years, so have our bookshelves. This meant getting rid of other furniture to make room for more books. You can’t have it all. Choose your priorities. If books are your priority, then make your home reflect as much.
I have a separate, smaller shelf, for cookbooks in my kitchen. I wanted the cookbooks to be easily accessible while cooking, and I didn’t want to have any overflow into other rooms.
My kids then have their own book storage shelves.
My oldest daughter is an avid book reader, so she has two dedicated shelves for her books. Those two shelves hold a few hundred children’s books! That’s ok. Books bring her joy, and as long as she wants the space for books, we will make the space for them.
Does this mean less space for other things, like toys? Yes. She is perfectly ok with this.
Creating book storage solutions will making sorting and decluttering your books so much easier!
Related Post: 8 Organizing Mistakes That Make Your Home Look More Cluttered
Finding the right balance for the number of books you own is key. You have to find the perfect balance for you and your likes.
If you reference books often, create more space for yourself. If you actually re-read books, create space for those.
You don’t have to count the number of books in your home and never go over that number.
Find a reasonable balance that fits your home and your lifestyle.
The thing is not to hold on to books only because you are scared to let them go. Hold on to books that bring you value and function.
I feel like fictional books are a dime a dozen. There are some amazing ones out there, but they are usually very affordable and easy to come by. Therefore, I started with fiction books.
I think I’ve only reread one fiction book ever (the last in the sequence of Twilight – don’t judge me!) I still have that book, and there is a very high likelihood I will read it again.
For all the other books in your collection that are either read or unread, pick a number to keep or space to take up, and don’t exceed that number or space.
If you have this mindset, figuring out which books to keep and which ones to get rid of will be so much easier!
What’s the right number of books to keep? Well, that all depends.
It depends on how often you read books and your storage space. If you don’t have the space for keeping books, you need to declutter your books or make space elsewhere.
Second to go in my decluttering mission were non-fiction books. We had a few (or shelves full)! We even had a few boxes full from a prior move that never got unpacked.
If it’s a book to learn a new skill but you have mastered it now, it may be time to let it go.
If it’s a book to learn a new skill but you haven’t picked it up in years with no intention to in the near future, it’s also time to let it go.
Have you outgrown that phase in your life? If it’s a book about pregnancy, and you have no plans of ever purposefully getting pregnant again, time to let it go.
I love giving away books, especially books that may be able to benefit someone else.
Share non-fiction books with friends with an interest in the topic. Save your friend or family member money by gifting them something you already enjoyed.
This one is hard. Boy, do I get it!
Those sweet memories of holding your little one, reading the same favorite book over and over again. It is hard to let that go.
Here’s the thing, your kids probably don’t want their old books for their kids. There, I said it.
We had boxes of old books from my husband’s childhood. It was sweet we were able to read them again, and we have probably a hundred of them on our shelf still.
They are thin and they are getting used. However, I am not sure it was worth the trouble of saving all those boxes of books for thirty years.
As my kids get older, we will likely pass on most of the books in our collection. I don’t have the storage space or the desire to hold on to books for a few decades.
I would rather give my kids the space to play and save the storage space for other items.
Pick your favorite one to three books once your kids outgrow them, and put them in a keepsake box. Don’t save them all. It creates a burden on your kids when they are grown.
If you are still too emotionally tied to books, give them to a family member who is expecting or a friend with little ones.
Think about the space you are creating by letting go of these unnecessary books too. What else could go there? New, more advanced books? Baskets for more age-appropriate toys?
Sometimes knowing what you can have instead of clutter, makes it easier to let go of the emotional stuff!
If you are a collector of cookbooks and love food, this may be a difficult category to conquer. I mean, cookbooks are useful! Why on earth would you get rid of them?!!!
I had cookbooks from my Grandmother’s church, my husband’s childhood church, vegan cookbooks (from that phase in my life when a desperate solution was needed for my digestive issues), and many other favorites I collected from used bookstores or asked for as a Christmas present over the years.
Thing is, if you are not using the cookbooks regularly, help them find a home where they will get used.
I had friends experimenting with vegan cooking. It was a joy to give them my no longer used cookbooks and save them the money. I even marked my favorite recipes for them with notes!
How often do you use Pinterest for recipes now? I know I use it a lot! Honestly, with the internet, I really don’t need that many cookbooks, as much as I hate to admit it.
In all reality, I use two cookbooks more than anything else.
I use the Joy of Cooking (classic cookbook I think should be in every home) and 100 Days of Real Food (easy recipes for everyday families). That’s it.
While I still hold on to a handful more, I could probably survive on just these two cookbooks!
If you keep your cookbooks in your pantry, check out my post on organizing your pantry!
When you declutter your home, everything should have a designated space. For books, that means they should have a designated bookshelf or area to exist.
Make a rule. Once that area is full, something has to go. When you have control of a designated space, you essentially stop the overflow and the ongoing clutter.
Use your local library to help stop the inflow of new books, and if you buy new books, find a home for your old ones.
There are people that will love your decluttered books. Keep them from collecting dust and help them find a home where they can be loved!
Decluttering books doesn’t have to be an impossible task! You can do it. Take your time, and be honest with yourself.
When you are done decluttering your books, check out these places where you can donate used books.
Do your kids have a large collection of books? As awesome as it is to have a lot of books, it is still important to declutter and organize kids’ books every so often! You will find that when you organize your kids’ books, they will read more. Plus, they will pick up books that they might not have even realized they had. Or they might reread a old favorite book. Sharing the best tips for how to organize kids’ books!
This post contains affiliate links. That means that if you click through and make purchases, I may earn a commission. For more information, feel free to see disclosure.
Before you can figure out how to organize a lot of children’s books, you need to declutter them! Your kids’ books will never stay organized if you have too many books. When you have piles of books that are all over the place, kids do not know where to find them. So ultimately, they will not read as much.
You will find that when your kids’ books are organized in a clear manner, they will reach for a book more often!
We will discuss some of the best ways to organize kids’ books. But first, we need to talk about how to declutter your kids’ books.
The first step to decluttering your kids’ books is to take inventory of all the ones that you have! So gather up your books from all over the house and pile them into one spot. You might have books in the living room, kid’s bedroom and even the car!This step is a good way to see how big your book collection really is.
The next step to decluttering your kids’ book collection is to group the books into categories. Now you can see what types of books your kids have a lot of. Think of your kids’ book collection as an at home library. By having books grouped together, they will be able to quickly and easily reach for the genre they want.
Here are some kids’ book genres you can use to categorize their book collection:
Your book categories will depend on the book collection that you have. So you may or may not have books in all of these genres.
Now it is time to declutter your kids’ books! Take a look at the different piles. Are there duplicate books? Are there books that your kids did not enjoy reading? Get rid of books your kids do not read. This is the time to let go of books that your kids have outgrown. I’ll share what to do with your children’s old books later in the post.
You have pared down your kids’ books to the ones you want to keep. Now, you need to decide how to display and organize your kids’ books.
There are several different way to display children’s books. But the key thing to keep in mind is that you want your kids’ books to be easily accessible. You can have a pretty book display but if it is too hard for the kids to reach the books, then they will not read them. Also, you want to make sure that it is easy for the kids to keep their books organized. If the book organization method is not clear for them, then the books will be disorganized in no time!
Keep similar books together and make sure that the kids can see the titles of the books. So the book binding should be facing outward on a kids’ book shelf.
One way to get kids to read different books is to rotate their books. This might not be something you want to do all the time, but the holidays are a good time to bring out different books. You can even store holiday books along with your holiday decorations! This will free up more book shelf space and it will remind you to bring out seasonal books!
Now that you have pared down your kids’ book collection, you are wondering what to do with the old books. The great thing about getting rid of books is that there are a lot of things that you can do with old books.
Do you know someone that has younger kids? Everyone loves to get new books for their kids. What is old to you is new to the person you are gifting the books to!
Another way to get rid of old books is to donate them! Bring your kids’ books to a free little library near you. Or if you can not find one of those, than you might be able to donate gently used books to your local library. Often times, libraries will have book sales with the donated books to help raise money for the library.
Several years ago, my daughter hosted a book swap at the beginning of the summer. It was a great way to celebrate the end of the school year. Plus, the girls all were able to get some new books to read for the summer!
Another great way to get rid of old children’s books is to try to sell them! If you have a local used bookstore in the area, try to sell your books that are in great to excellent condition. You should not expect to get a lot of money back but is certainly an incentive, especially for kids, to get rid of some books.
Another option for selling kids’ books is to list them on Facebook Marketplace. The best kids’ books to sell on Facebook Marketplace are elementary school chapter books. If you have the entire collection of a particular children’s series, you should have no trouble selling the books. There is no bad time to try to sell kids’ books but a really great time to list them is at the beginning of the summer. Parents are always looking for summer reading for their kids! Read my post Best Tips for Selling on Facebook Marketplace to help you get the best money for your books!
Another great use for old books is to actually put the books on display! You could frame old book covers and put them on display in a kid’s bedroom or playroom! This is a great way to re purpose old books and bring new life to them!
Once you have pared down your kids’ book collection, it is necessary to figure out how and where to store them. There are a lot of great storage solutions for organizing kids’ books!
The best place to store books in in the kid’s bedroom. They are much more likely to grab a book to read at bedtime if the books are within an easy reach!
If you have enough space, a big bookcase is a great way to store kids’ books. We love this large size bookshelf. We can group books by categories into the different compartments. This bookcase comes in several different finishes.
Turn on your JavaScript to view contentIf you do not have enough room for a bookcase, you could hang a few book shelves. These acrylic book shelves are so stylish and functional. Hang a few of these shelves near your kid’s bed for an easy reach for bedtime stories!
My youngest son gets out of bed so many times to grab books from the bookshelf. I finally realized that I needed a book basket by his bed with some of his favorite bedtime stories. It is nice for him to have easy access to his own books. Plus, it to have a basket to keep the book clutter at bay.
Similar basket option
Baskets of books can be incorporated into other places in the house. It is nice to have a basket of books in the living room and playroom. You never know when your kids will want to read books!
Another great option for storing kids’ books is to set up a book nook!
For many years, we had a tepee set up as a book nook! I would put a few seasonal books inside the tepee and my kids loved to crawl inside and read by themselves. You can fit a reading nook just about anywhere you have a corner!
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There are a lot of clever ways to store books if you do not have much space. You can use wooden crates, wire baskets and under the bed storage.
If you are short on space, you do need to be mindful about how many books you own. You should only have as many books as your space allows!
Here are a few additional kids’ book storage ideas!
This book cart is adorable! Plus, it has wheels so you can move it around the house.
We have and love these wooden crates! They can hold a lot of stuff but especially these crates are good for book storage!
Turn on your JavaScript to view contentThese wire baskets are nice for younger kids because they can see what is inside of them.
There are so many great options for organizing kids’ books. What do you do with all of your kids’ books?