Today my husband braved the attic and brought down three gigantic boxes of books from when I use to teach third and fourth grade.  It is a huge collection, and varies in level, theme, subject, you name it.  Some of the books Bruce has already read, but there are hundreds more that will (hopefully) keep him busy for a while.

Here’s a big trick teachers know!  Instead of just shelving all of the books like a normal mom would do, I grouped them by theme, author, or series, and put them in neat little boxes.  That way, the collection won’t appear overwhelming to Bruce, and he will better be able to pick out what he wants to read.

Right now we have boxes for Adventure, Fantasy, Science Fiction, Sports, Newberry Award Winners, A to Z Mysteries, A Series of Unfortunate Events, The Boxcar Children, Beverly Cleary, Star Wars, Magic Treehouse, etc.  You get the idea.  I still need to trek down to Ikea to get more boxes.  At the moment, I stole them from Jenna’s dresser!

If I had been more on the ball, I would have used this box method back when Bruce was three, and just starting out as an independent reader.  I would have made boxes for books about dogs, books about construction vehicles, Sesame Street books,  Bob the Builder books… You get the idea.  Shoulda, coulda, woulda, but better late than never!