My children are responsible to keep their own books and toys. However, after 5 years of accumulating books, there are enough children’s books in the house to make packing and searching quite a headache even for adults! If I want the children to help out in the house, I know I have to make it easy for them to do so.
Started a system of keeping my books in the house, which has solved my problems! Even the children are able to pack the books back at the right place without fail! (99% of the time 
) So here we are, neat shelves, maintained by children, with little supervision from adults.
And here’s what I did:
Materials: (All available from major Popular bookshops)
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labels (I use “Sun Flower”, No. 1006)
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Colorful small round stickers (I use Herma No. 1831)
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scotch tape, or the 3M tape that doesn’t spoil the surface
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time (for my household, I completed it in 1 whole afternoon)
How:
Most Books
I group most of the children books according to different categories. And use the labels to color coded each of the category. Eg, the yellow coded books:
The following for your reference, you can change according to your household needs. (We have already given away most of our baby books, so no baby category here.)
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Blue - Toddler Books (simple 1 sentence per page story books)
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Yellow – Preschooler Books (simple 2 – 4 sentences per page books)
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Green – Books with common authors/theme/characters (eg, Eric Carle, Suess, Thomas books, The Berenstain Bears, etc)
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Red – B4FIAR & FIAR books
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Red & Green – Fables, Fairy Tales, Classic Stories, etc
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Red & Blue - Chapter books
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Pink – General Knowledge, Non-fiction
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Brown – Various Authors
These books are than placed accordingly on the bookshelves.
Other books
Series & books in basket
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Series books – I place the books that come in a whole series together without any labelling cause they are quite obvious. (Eg, Sunshine books, National Geographic’s Windows on Literacy Series, etc)
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Chinese books are together
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Books that the children seldom read and I’m still deciding whether to code or not are all in a basket.
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Bibles – they are thick and heavy, and has been used as dividers
And Mr E loves to call it “Our home library” 
hey, I should do that too …. if only Zane lets the books stay where they should be.
Now, it’s just Zane’s books or Zoe’s books ….
Zoe’s precious books locked in her shelves. Think you know why … And Zoe is generous in “handing down” her books, but can tell she is heartpain over the way Zane “reads” them.
And, your dear friend here still has the habit or replacing books, meaning getting the same books if the old ones are tattered. To date, I’ve bought 4 Dr Seuss’s ABC books already, one for Zoe when she was a tot, 3 for Zane …
Jess
Hei Jess,
if the book is great, I will buy it again too. In fact, one of our precious book is in need of a brand new copy too… well, you and me are book lovers
so i totally understand what you mean 
Delci
I am limited by space as I am staying with my in-laws….your home library looks good!
Lastly, Happy Lunar New Year to you and your family!
Hei Adeline,
Happy Lunar New Year too…
Actually living with in laws has its pros… 3 generation family
This is impressive – like a little home library
And its really good to get the kids to organise and keep their own stuff.
Eh! Can I ask you what are you referring to when you say ***3M tape*** that won’t spoil the books?
I used to do this for my books but the tape kept on falling off! So I gave up but now looking at the mess (both the kids & I can’t remember which books go onto which shelves!) I need to reinstate this system. BUT I dun want the tape to fall off so easily or to spoil the cover of the books.
HOW?
Serene
hei yo Serene,
let me know which Tues you free. Will bring over to show you. Also need to pass the sea salt to you.
anyway, the tape not totally clear looking like normal scotch tape. But will look clear the moment you stick it on.
But I actually don’t use that, it was suggested by another friend. I use the good old scotch tape. The labels are also stickers, so I think that may had helped prevent the tape from dropping off?
[...] took time today to tidy up our ‘home library’. Our new books have been dumped into the baskets waiting for me to tag them [...]