Getting rid of children's books

[momtoS]

Please support me. I am going through my daughters books. We have over 400 children's books. I am renting a table in a mom2mom sale soon and have decided I need to get rid of some....it is tough....I can't believe how attacted I am to books.....

[daytripper75]

Let them go! They are easy to come by second-hand and the library always has a kazillion for you to borrow. Let them be a joy to someone else!

[ASusan]

Oh, please - let someone else enjoy them. Once you let them go, space will open up for others to enter your life.

I used to feel this way about books, but I feel so much freer now that I am able to let books go.

[momtoS]

I sorted through and got rid of a whole box!

[justmeandmybrood]

I think it is a great idea! I felt SO much freer when we got rid of boxes filled with kiddy books (of course this was when we thought we were done with the infant/toddler set...now we are expecting #3 ).

[clutterwarrior]

Originally Posted by momtoS

I sorted through and got rid of a whole box!

Cool!

Please tell me what you did with them...I am keen to get rid of childrens books too.

[happyhats]

I love love children's books, and I'm not in any hurry to get rid of ours. But I admire those that do! One thing we're doing is putting all the books together. I currently have children's books in her room, but it's not working out. They become a mess on the floor, they just take up space in there, and we rarely read anything in her room anyway. So doing something like this might help you have a designated space that you can not fill more than.

[GiantGi]

I usually go through the books and pick out the ones that are not favorites. Then I let the kids do the same thing. I have donated so many to the library that way.

[Caneel]

Another can't-let-go-of-children's-booker here! I have started a pile to go.

What about donating them to a preschool? DS's preschool has a lending library of books that kids can borrow from. Obviously, they expect some of the books to not come back so if some little kid finds a favorite off that shelf, all the better.

[justmeandmybrood]

Another option is to use swap sites like bookmooch.com - I posted several like-new books from the kids' collection (as well as my own). That way, as people wanted our old kiddy books, I could send them out and trade for books that were more on their current levels - we *love* books around here, lol!

[philomom]

As a unrepentant bibliophile who kids had hundreds of books..... I managed to get the stack down to forty favorites that remain on a special shelf in our home. These are the ones my teens pull out to read to their little cousins or little visitors.

[justmeandmybrood]

Philomom, what a great idea with keeping a selected # of books like that! My Mom and MIL both kept about a box each of our childhood books, and that was too many, egads! I do well with number limits, so your system sounds perfect!

[proudmomof4]

MabMama and philomom, I love your suggestions. I also have a box of favorites back in Germany.

I've donated lots of books to public libraries and to our elementary school library, both in the U. S. and in Germany.
Being expats here, I've given a lot of our German books to my children's international school. (You'll find English children's books on a regular basis here, but anything else is really hard.)

Depending on your children's ages and developmental levels, it might also work to swap some with a friend. (I just did that here for the above reasons - those are "first readers" in German my youngest one will be ready for in about a year. After he's done with them they'll leave the house.)

[momtoS]

In my town there is a program that has a take-a-book/leave-a-book shelves in doctors offices and dentists etc. Good idea!