Hello and thanks for visiting The Happy Housewife. If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed, or sign up for free daily email update. Thanks for visiting!
Everyone knows that a key aspect to teaching your child to read is to read to your children. One of the best ways to grow a reader is to have an ample supply of good books in your home. Some prefer (and can afford) to build large home libraries, others due to lack of space and money, utilize their local library.
One of the problems I faced over the years was finding good books for my kids. Yes, there a plenty of them out there, but there are also tons of books that are dull, inappropriate, poorly written, or are just garbage. I try to read most of the books my children read, but as they get older this has become harder for me to do.
I thought it would be fun, and helpful to start a monthly series called “The Book Basket.” In our home, the library books are stored in a central location. This helps us reduce library fines and makes it easy for the children to find their books.
Each month I will publish a listing of our library books, and any other books from our personal library we are reading. I will try to give a thumbs up or down for most of the books to help others in their search for good books. Remember, these are my opinions and what is acceptable for my family, might not be for yours.
I will also add a Mr. Linky so you can share your monthly book list with my readers. I am always looking for great suggestions and can’t wait to read what others are reading!
The first Book Basket post will go up this Thursday April 16. Feel free to link up your children’s book list or a book review.
Amanda had a great idea, if you would like you can include a picture of where you keep your library books in your book post as well.
{ 30 comments… read them below or add one }
I love this idea, we really use our library. Everyweek for our three kids, we have 10 or more books coming and going on different subjects. It’s hard to keep track of it all sometimes
[Reply]
Awesome….I look forward to seeing your list of books. I agree….reading to our children is essential to making them good readers and enjoy reading.
[Reply]
What a neat idea! Thanks.
[Reply]
Can’t wait to get recommendations from others and share mine! My girls read so quickly, I have a difficult time keeping them supplied with appropriate reading material.
[Reply]
Fun!
[Reply]
Super idea! And since I just had a heart to heart with my boys this morning about books not being big blocks to make forts with…I am excited to take a closer look at what we have in our bookshelves.
I hope to go to the library a few times a week, looking forward to everyone’s suggestions.
[Reply]
This is a good idea. I read to my daughter when she was younger. We went to the library all the time. She would bring home tons of books. Now she is 14 soon to be 15 and she is still a good reader.
[Reply]
This is a great idea! And, I love your new banner : )
[Reply]
great idea!
[Reply]
Great idea! I just actually finished creating a book list and filling a “free reading” book basket for my 7-year old son (my only independant reader so far).
[Reply]
What a great idea! I have not taken my kiddos to the library in a while because the books usually get mixed up in ours and a month later I have a $5 late fee for a three dollar book I didn’t see!!! We are off to the library in the AM!
[Reply]
What a wonderful idea! It’s hard to pre-screen all books for your children – so having this particular sharing is great!
[Reply]
Oh, I will so be there. Can’t wait. I will have to start typing tonight.
i think it would be neat if everyone could post a picture of where they keep their library books.
[Reply]
Excellent Idea.. I’m always looking for books to read to my kids, we have almost out read our library! We take out between 20-30 books every two weeks! AHHHH!
[Reply]
Great idea! One of my goals is to read to my kids more, both love books (well Hailey my 11 month old chews on them more!)
Thanks again for some great inspiration!
[Reply]
Great idea! We have far too many library fines and this sounds like a great way to avoid those nasty things :/ BTW… love the basket in the pic! Could you post where you got this one? Thanks!
[Reply]
Can’t wait to hear what books your kids are reading! Love the idea, and hopefully I can share some of our favorites too! Thanks!
[Reply]
Sounds fun. There is a need for this, I was just searching a couple weeks ago for reviews of childrens books by mom’s.
[Reply]
I love this idea and will look forward to reading your lists. I can spend hours on Amazon reading reviews and linking back and forth to different ‘lists’. I love the library and Paperbackswap but nothing beats holding a brand new book with crisp pages in your hands!
[Reply]
LOVE this idea–I’m going to start doing the same on my blog.
[Reply]
What a great idea! I don’t know if I will participate much, but I will enjoy seeing yours! And others’ lists too!
[Reply]
I love to read, and hope my kids will too. But I had no idea what books were best as they got older. The best book I’ve found was “The Read-Aloud Handbook” by Jim Trelease. He cites studies on the importance of reading to children and letting them interact during, and gives lists of books appropriate for all age levels, from picture books to highschool age. It’s a really good read for me, and very helpful in building a quality library for my kids. Hope you get a chance to check it out!!
[Reply]
The Goodwill Store is also a great inexpensive place to get books! My children love to go with me to shop and it doesn’t cost much money.
[Reply]
I miss our book basket. It did help the boys and me to not have overdue books, and reading was always a huge part of their early lives. What goes around comes around; and although neither of them read for pleasure in high school, they’re both avid readers today. I can’t imagine going a day without reading some little something for pleasure!
[Reply]
I was just curious, how do you store your books when they are not in the nice display basket? I am former teacher & now SAHM, & am trying to figure the best way to organize my books. I have some in tubs already with theme related material, but I have a bunch of misc. books as well. I don’t want to keep them in cardboard boxes or just dump them in one big plastic tub. I welcome any thoughts!! = ) Thanks!
[Reply]
Oh, we use a book basket too. We have one in our sitting room and one in the bathroom. We have a learning poster in the bathroom for my potty-training toddlers and a couple times a month we change the theme and get theme appropriate books from the library to read while we potty! I actually wrote a post for tomorrow on our learning poster. You can see it at http://www.beautifulcalling.ca on Wednesday!
[Reply]
How cool! I’m in!!
Would love to find some new books for all of us to read!!
[Reply]
Hi – where did you buy that basket?
[Reply]
our last library in the states gave a reciept of all checked out books, listing their name, author and due dates. I got into the habit of putting the bookbag next to the door but the reciept went to the fridge/ corkboard in org central. I highlighted the dates that were different from the standard 2 week checkout (movies, games etc) but then at the top in very cruel ominious black sharpie I wrote the due date. It helped us remember to get the books back but it was great to have a list of what I was looking for at the gathering up time.
[Reply]
I bought one of the wheeled file totes with the telescoping handle from Office Depot. All of the library materials stay there and we just pull it around the library with us. Th kids love picking books and movies and just throwing them in the bin to check out. I love knowing where all of the books are when it’s time to take them back and not having to carry a heavy bag around.
[Reply]