A Bookish Tour June 13, 2016

Not sure if I have ever done a bookshelf tour post before, but I thought I would do one today. My bookcases are currently stuffed to the gills and will probably be redone or added to in the coming year, but I thought I would give you a glimpse into my organisation. Keep in mind this is strictly my YA books. My children’s, middle grade, and adult bookcases are super hot messes. We recently attempted to reorganise my children’s bookcase, but there are so many that it is still super stuffed and messy haha. The kiddos also need a new bookcase, but hubby isn’t wanting to budge on more bookcases until we remodel downstairs. *sigh* Anyway! Welcome to my shelves!

The first two bookcases are actually small bookcases in my bedroom at the foot of my bed. They were empty for a while until I reorganised my books back in early spring. I decided to move favourite series and oversized books to these bookcases to free up some space on my main YA bookcase. It helped, for like a week until I reorganised that bookcase! haha. Left picture: Top shelf: JK Rowling/Robert Galbraith’s books and Cassandra Clare’s Shadowhunter books. Bottom shelf: Sarah J Maas, Melissa de la Cruz, and two of the Eragon books that wouldn’t fit anywhere else. Right picture: Top shelf: the rest of  my Harry Potter collection. Companion guides and more foreign editions (German, Spanish, and French). Also Jodi Meadows collection. Still on the hunt for an Incarnate ARC if you can help a girl out! (This shelf is also precarious now. I went to put Mirror King on the bookshelf and it collapsed. I couldn’t find all of the pins to put the shelf back up! Not that the bookcase is in the best of shape anyway haha) Middle shelf (which is laying on the books on the bottom shelf!) is full of oversized books. I just kinda have them shoved on here for this picture because The 5th Wave trilogy is in my June TBR. Bottom shelf: A combo of oversized books and my Maggie Stiefvater collection. Ballad is also in th stack, but I just realised from this angle you can’t see it. Oops!

Now my main YA bookcase in our office/den. We have three big bookcases in our office/den. The first is my Adult/School books. The second is overflow adult with my middle grade collection. The third, above, is my YA. The fourth is the kiddos’ bookcase stuffed full with picture books. If you notice, there are books with flags on them. Those are all unread books. I finally gave up on keeping my TBR books from my read books separate, but wanted a system to ID unread books. This system is not completely foolproof. The kiddos like stealing my flags on books they can reach, like the Ruta Sepetys books in the last picture. Everything easily fit on my bookcase for maybe a month. I’ve been promised floor to ceiling bookcases in my office when we remodel, but I need more space now! I’m thinking I might pick up another bookcase soon. Not sure where I’ll put it yet though! haha. Most of these, excluding the majority of my Melissa de la Cruz, JK Rowling, and Stephenie Meyer books have been accrued in the last four or so years. The bulk coming in since right around when I started blogging. Pretty sure Hubs thinks I have a book hoarding problem. I do not think so!

Anyway, that’s my organisational system. All books on the YA case are alphabetical except a few that have been displaced, but I didn’t feel like completely overhauling my bookcase for one or two books. How do you organise your books? I love the idea of by colour, but I HAVE to have all of my books together by author haha. It bothers me if they’re not!

(Late) Weekly Reading Review #3 July 29, 2013

So, this week’s review is late. This weekend got busy and escaped me and I realised last night as I was falling asleep that I forgot my review! I did a bit of reading for me, but I haven’t finished any of my books yet. The bulk of the reading was for the kiddos. I don’t mind though. It makes me extremely happy that they are already showing an immense love for books!

Our library has story time three times a week. At the main branch it’s on Monday and Tuesday and at the smaller branch on Wednesdays. I had meant to get in the habit of going this summer, but with our kitchen flooding and taking all summer to be remodeled, it hasn’t happened. I’m determined to get in the habit though! Last Monday, I saw on Facebook that the main branch was having a train enthusiast come and speak about trains. I immediately knew that I must take the kiddos with the way my son loves trains. I was shocked that out of the about 20 kids who were there, my son was the only one who knew who Thomas the Train is. Wow. The speaker was a bit dull for kids, in my opinion, but my son seemed to enjoy it a teeny bit. I think he enjoyed the colouring page and our usual routine of him playing at the train table while I pick out books more, though. At our library, kids cannot get their own library card until their sixth birthday. So, that means the kids and I share my card. (I really need to get hubby to get a card for when Ladybug starts wanting books of her own too!) Each card is allowed to get 20 items at a time. You can see how this can be a potential problem when a mama has to share her items with two kids. Kids’ books aren’t terribly long and we read several a day for the most part. This results in a usual 10 books for the kiddos per trip and we have been going twice a week to rotate books. Sometimes they get more if I’m waiting on books to come in or am slowing down for a bit of a break after a reading marathon.

We didn’t make it to story time today, hopefully we’ll be up and ready to go tomorrow. May be a bit more difficult since story time is earlier on Tuesday than Monday! It’s not a complete loss though, Punk spent the weekend with my step-dad and we didn’t read any of the library books, so they aren’t ready to return anyway!

Another big day in our house is when the kids’ books arrive from Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library. If you’re in TN and have kids under the age of five, PLEASE enroll them in this wonderful program. If you aren’t in TN, you can still check it out and see if it is in your area. She’s slowly expanding it. My children have both been enrolled since birth. I’ve made a big deal about Book Day from the get-go. We always sit down and unwrap the book and look through it when it arrives. Then we read it that night for our bedtime story. Right now, the kids are on separate mailing dates, so the books arrive at different times throughout the month. I hope it stays this way so it stays a bit more exciting!

I guess to blame for the lack of a Friday post could be blamed on an over hour long Twitter conversation with Mary, Alex, and author Jodi Meadows. We had so much fun! #EvilAuthorsAreEvil! I’m so excited for the chance to meet her in person one day! Our conversations are always hysterical!

Completed:

Read to the kiddos:
Stop, Train, Stop! by Wilbert Awdry. 3 stars.
Dancing with Degas by Julie Merberg. 4 stars. I LOVED the use of the Degas paintings. Of course I’m biased because I loved Degas going into this. Yes, I’m hoping my kiddos love his work as much as I do!
From Head to Toe by Eric Carle. 4 stars. C’mon, it’s Eric Carle. I love him, too!
The Little Mouse, the Red Ripe Strawberry, and the Big Hungry Bear by Don Wood. 3 stars. It would be 4 or 5 stars if my son was rating this. He giggled the whole way through!
Dinosaur Opposites by Paul Strickland. 3 stars.
Duck to the Rescue by Jez Alborough. 3 stars.
The Little Red Caboose by Marian Potter. 3 stars. My son would also rate this one a 4 or 5. We read this one several times this week! He is gaga for trains!
Misty Island Rescue by Wilbert Awdry. 3 stars.
Bones, Bones, Dinosaur Bones by Bryon Barton. 3 stars.
Dot the Fire Dog by Lisa Desimini. 3 stars.
Horton Hatches the Egg by Dr. Seuss. 4 stars. (read at our church’s preschool playgroup)
Winnie the Pooh’s Opposites by AA Milne. 3 stars. (Bug’s Dolly book)
Peekaboo Morning by Rachel Isadora. 3 stars. (Bug’s Dolly book)
Little Owl’s Night by Divya Srinivasan. 3 stars. (Punk’s Dolly book)

Currently reading:
Reached by Ally Condie. I will admit that I’ve had to take a step back from this book at the moment. It’s just slow reading for me.

A Million Suns by Beth Revis. I guess technically I’m not still reading it as I haven’t read anymore in over a week. I’ll probably re-start it once I finish a few other books.

Cinder by Marissa Meyer. Oh, wow. I’m breezing through this book. I LOVE it. I’m planning on doing a review when I finish, so hopefully that will be out later this week!

New to my shelf:
Stardust by Neil Gaiman, via library. I loved the movie and have wanted to read the book ever since!
Shades of Earth by Beth Revis, via library. I guess a reason I’ve been at a standstill on A Million Suns was because Mary told me to have 2 and 3 in my hands for immediate read through.
The Immortal Rules by Julie Kagawa. This was given to me by the wonderful Mary (: She’s the best!
Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein. I decided to treat myself to two books and this was one of them!
Grave Mercy by RL LaFevers. This was the second book I ordered.

I guess I should also include my new Kindle reads each week too! They are new to my virtual shelf!
Hollowland by Amanda Hawking
Entangled by Nikki Jefford
The Light Tamer by Devyn Dawson

For now, I’m going to pass on listing the new to the kids’ shelf unless it’s one we buy. I may change my mind later, but for now, I’ll just list them as we read them.

Have any of you heard of Thomas the Train before? I thought he was still much more popular than he seems to be… or maybe the kids were just shy and not wanting to show off. I know how that is!