Last year around this time, we spent a week discussing libraries. In fact, we ended that week with a slue of recommendations by Christian leaders as to the one or two books they would like to see in every American library. (It’s a great list, so I hope you’ll check out the recommendation list here.)
This year, we thought we’d talk not about how to impact public libraries, but what Christians can do to build their own home, school, and personal libraries. In any time and place, Christians will need to approach media a little differently from the world. In a culture that is in many ways still rebelling against its Christian roots, the need is perhaps even more pronounced. So, how can we go about building libraries–or perhaps web resources now instead–that will inspire, nurture, and make the best stories and research available to the church, our kids, and even seekers.
When I think about Christian libraries, I don’t picture a white-columned building downtown. I think of my father-in-law’s study, and the other rows of hidden book shelves that span his five-bedroom home. I became a Christian before I met him, through the influence of a number of different friends and preachers. But once I was His, I still felt enormous pressure from my secular classes at college and later in my job at a wonderful secular publisher, all of which offered a very different view of the world than the one I felt the Bible presented. But on trips back to my husband’s home, my father-in-law would listen to my latest intellectual battles, disappear into one of his library rooms, and come back with at least three books on the subject. I would take them home, read them over the next few weeks, and emerge that much stronger in my faith.
The books alone would not have been enough to change my heart or realign my thinking, but in the context of the Spirit’s work, solid Bible teaching at church, and Christian friends to encourage me, that library has shaped me in ways I can’t possibly recount.
Believe it or not, if you have books around your house, you have a library too. All the books on your book shelves and ipads, that’s your library. And how you stock that library tells your kids what kind of books are important to you, what you want to pass on, and how you see the world. I know in my own life, it’s very easy not to be purposeful about what I buy for my kids and what ends up in our home library. You buy a birthday book here, and a Christmas book there. And eventually, you get a pile of books you can rummage through on boring summer afternoons.
I’d like to encourage us all to go beyond that. To get a vision for your library, and to create one that is both effective and memorable in the lives of your children. I’d also like to encourage Christians to consider how we can support and even launch libraries–or perhaps just make use of virtual ones–for our schools and churches.
So toward that end, I that I would genuinely ask a question, and it’s one we’ll be thinking about the rest of October: What is your vision of your home, church, or school library?
Especially you older moms, what have you tried to provide your kids in your library? What has worked and what hasn’t? With kids in kindergarten and first grade, I’m really just beginning this project–the accumulation phase as I heard one homeschool mom call it–so, any hints you could share? What have been the most important books or kinds of books in your kids’ library? What has totally bombed?
I am so looking forward to hearing your answers!
Giveaways
As for our giveaways, we have quite a few books to giveaway this month to help you beef up your home libraries. So check back often, both here and our Facebook page, if you’d like to snag a few of them. It’s going to be a fun month!
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one reason why i love buying books over pdf or kindle versions – you can give electronic copies out to friends and family who need strength and faith building
After homeschooling 3 kids over 9 years, we have quite a collection of books. I am always wishing for one more bookshelf! But I manage by getting rid of the books that don’t work each year. And there are always those few…
Still, I do recommend buying bargain books and keeping a copy at home rather than only borrowing from the library (although I do understand financial crunches!). My reasons are:
1. Good books do become “characters in our biography,” as I once heard someone say.
2. I can’t tell you how many times I have gone back to look up passages from many books on my shelves, for all kinds of reasons. It is comforting to know where these important words are and be able to put my hands on them again.
3. You can make notes in your books, and return to them later… and this becomes a journal of sorts that (hopefully) following generations might appreciate.
4. I can remember pouring over the two shelves of books that my grandmother owned. She did not have many books, and this made the few she had seem very precious. I look forward to introducing my grandchildren to the books that their parents read, one day. I hope.
About home libraries: I find that it helps to categorize your books on the shelves by topics or threads so that it is easy for children (or adults, for that matter) to wander without losing that train of thought. I want them to learn that one idea follows another. And it makes them easy to find, too. (Which is important if you have multiple shelves!)
I find that by the second and third go-round, I know where each book is and when it is needed without much forethought. And yet life brings unexpected delights all the time, and there is always enough to tighten up and freshen up the list, or tweak it according to each child.
One thing I think it’s good to remember is that even if the kids don’t bite the bait at home, if they grow up surrounded by good books and interested parents, they tend to find that to be their “comfort zone.” So I think it will naturally find them as adults, despite our fears. We tend to think that because OUR job is finished when they leave home, it means THEY are finished growing up and maturing. But just like I am still growing and learning, I have learned to expect them to do the same. I was their first teacher… but I will surely not be their last. My plan is to be like your father-in-law, always ready with a book in hand for them when they return. 🙂
I am terribly frugal ( cheap?) so I don’t purchase many books unless I have read them and know their value. That being said, we have a ridiculous amount of books, both print and digital, that have made it to our library. Books that have had an impact on me are the ones I tend to loan out over and over again. We also have a large selection of biographies and classics. It is such a joy though to get a recommendation of some unheard of book and fall completely in love with it!
Great point, Melissa. I have tried book lending via Nook and it didn’t work too well.
Jennifer, Could you please come organize my library?! Janie will tell you, organization isn’t my forte–it comes hard if at all. Seriously, though, thanks for all the helpful tips. I love your phrase “characters in our biography” for books we love. That’s so true.
Kim, I’m trying to stock up on biographies right now. But classics I have tended to just get from the library. At least, non-Christian classics. I wonder what other moms do on this one….
I have a LOT of books, but I buy very few these days. I have memories like Jennifer mentioned of pouring over the couple of shelves in my grandmother’s house. To that end, I’ve begun to wonder if too much book choice is a good thing (within our own home). There are some books I want my children to fall in love with, to savor, to reread… and those are the books we own. When there are too many choices, then the books aren’t savored and treasured; instead, they are gobbled up and rushed through.
We bring home truckloads of books weekly from the local library, but the books we own are the ones that we read over and over and over. For instance, in the easy reader category, we own Frog and Toad, but check out books like Hi! Fly Guy. We’re in the kindergarten/1st grade stage, too, and all three of my kids are transitioning to full-on chapter books (my daughter is there). So, I have books in the coming stage that I want to make sure they “meet.” Narnia is a terrific example. I have biographies. I have classic children’s book (Wind in the Willows, etc.).
But I DON’T buy books generally that are readily available in my library. For instance, we love Petunia (that silly goose), but we tend to just check it out a couple times/year. Same with Ping–i want the local library to have good circulation statistics for books like these so they don’t get culled in the next weeding out!
We also tend to buy Christian nonfiction–if we buy a book, that is (digital or print). This is because these are the books in which we create marginalia (for instance, I own nearly all of Jerry Bridges’ books). We have an entire bookcase filled with books like that.
Emily, I confess most of my classic are ebooks on my Kindle because you can get them for free so easily!
And Betsy, I love your point about keeping good books in circulation at the library! Sadly our local library is a one-room community project with no lending rights with other libraries, so were extremely limited in what we can get at the library. 🙁
Kim, Free is good….Do you read them as much? I went through a hoarding phase with digital classics, both ebook and audiobooks, but then I kinda went back to paper. Admittedly, I might think differently without a good library, though.
I am a homeschooling mom with a 7 yo reading well above grade level and a 5 yo not yet reading. We are very limited on both space and money for books. We use the public library heavily. I am very selective about purchasing books. Rarely do I buy a book I haven’t read several times. Unless it comes highly recommended by a trusted freind who shares my world view, like Emily!
I find that most of my purchases fall into one of three categories lately. 1) Classic literature – I get these in hardback 2) Chapter books for my reader – real literature no “twaddle”, always purchased used, usually from a thrift store or book sale for less than a dollar 3) Nonfiction: science, history, biography, art. 1 and 2 overlap; sometimes I will get a book in paperback and later find it in a nice hardback edition. I rarely buy picture books these days, perhaps two or three a year, as we have a good collection. Sometimes I find text-heavy picture books which are particulalry good for our studies and both my kids can enjoy.
It is often hard to find high quality books in the physical sense these days. Fewer and fewer books have sewn bindings. I am careful about bindings, paper quality, font size, layout and illustrations. Most bookstores don’t carry many high quality books in children’s literature. Amazon isn’t the answer here. I want to handle a book before I buy it. Ordering one only to return it in search of a better edition is irritating at best.
I do cull our books a couple times a year and rotate them to different places on our home.
I shop for books at thrift stores, used book shops and sales and online.
Some books I want each of my children to own and I’m not willing to give up my copy. We buy these slowly, waitng for the book to become a treasured friend before giving the child his or her own copy, in the best hardback edition we can get for a special occasion.
With a young child who is an advanced reader, I find myself looking for older books and especially British books because the grammar, vocabulary and syntax is often more challenging than that of more recent works while the content is age appropriate.
I’d love to have a house like Emily’s FIL’s! Our collection of theology books and other not- children’s books has dwindled over the last few years and is not likely to be restored until my kids are older, due to constraints of space and budget and priority of homeschooling. We use the library and ar ethankful to have an excellent one which is very amenable to suggestions for purchaes and which has a good ILL program.
One of my professors in graduate school said to reread two old books before you buy a new one and I have found that to be good advice!
The very first shelf in our home library contains books about biblioholism.
As a former children’s librarian who worked with homeschoolers, now a homeschooler who frequents the library (in spite of our overflowing shelves), I have learned that if I like I book, I should get it for our collection because it may not stay in print and then be very difficult to find enjoy down the road. (Examples: All-of-a-kind-family by Sydney Taylor, many books by Lois Lenski, Yellow and Pink by William Steig, the original Thomas the Tank Engine stories.) I have a Kindle, but my three boys (5 and under) aren’t allowed to use it yet, and I still enjoy the feel of books. I hope they don’t fade out of general use anytime soon!
I love organizing books so much, I did organize our collection generally by Dewey and alphabetized the fiction, which I have never regretted. (Emily, I’d love to come do your collection!) I did not bother with the picture books for sanity’s sake, but it is very helpful to know where to locate exactly the title I’m looking for. Whenever I attend a booksale I wish I had a list of my collection, as I have more than once brought home duplicates.
I grew up in a house with tons of books and am outgrowing our shelves, but I’ve culled about the best I can for now, so I just have to keep thinking creatively about what other things I can get rid of to make room for the books that my sons love to look at, listen to, and the eldest is beginning to read. What fun!!
Cathy, Can I just give you my book-buying budget money and let you gather for us? Then Megan can come organize them all….oh, what joy it will be in heaven when you all won’t be able to hoard your talents anymore!
A friend recently passed on the link to your website to me because she thought it would particularly interest our family.
You can’t imagine my delight to read your article about home library pursuits. We have been engaged in not only providing a library for our children and children’s children, but in sharing it with our community as a distinctly different service from the public library. Our family’s love of books has spread to other families in our area, and most recently to like-minded families all over the country.
Here is a link to our website (www.livingbookslibrary.com) and a guest post we wrote for the Childlight USA blog (https://childlightusa.wordpress.com/2012/07/15/sowing-living-book-seeds-by-liz-cottrill/) a couple of months ago. I hope you will be as encouraged to learn about what we are doing as we were to discover yours.
Sincerely,
Liz and Emily Cottrill
Oh, bless you, Liz and Emily! I could just hug you right now. What a wonderful service, and I can only imagine how the Lord is using your work.