The Bookshelf

When you first step foot into our house, besides noticing a huge feather-like object above the hallway (baleen), you'll see that we've got two bookshelves, a couch, and a corner office space. Unless you were an expected guest, the floor could possibly be littered with toys, books, and perhaps the stray piece of popcorn or afternoon snack (even likely from the day before). Really though, I try to keep most things in order as best I can with three little kidlets that travel behind me to undo my doneness.

The chaos of children's odds and ends strewn about the floor makes my eye twitch and my nerves twinge.

The bookshelves though, they're a special place for chaos. Contained on the bottom two shelves of each bookcase, just for the children, are all they can devour as far as reading material goes. On the very bottom shelf of one of the bookcases are two baskets full of toys and board books. Sometimes the baskets are emptied and an art installation is created.

Brayton prefers the toy section of our library, while Maddie and Abbie are usually digging around on the second shelf up, pulling off books about animals, princesses, planets, and other 2-5 year old stuff. Go up to the third shelf and there you'll find some books for youth and adults. Then the higher shelves contain even more precious, keep-your-sticky-afternoon-snack-fingers-off books. Ones that the kids try to reach. Many times I've found Abigail sneaking a book or two off by climbing up on a toy-turned-stool. She's been successful at thumbing through a few of my books, upside down, only to find that there are no pictures.



But that's what it's all about: enticing the children to the bookshelf with toys and picture books. Having them linger in brillance that is to be discovered. It's OK to have books toppled on the shelves haphazardly, making it easy to grab one or five at a time. It's OK to have chaotic baskets of board books spill over with color and texture and sound in a main living space. One's bookshelf should be enabling the children to look up to higher levels of learning and having them reach for bigger words, fewer pictures, and deeper morals and ideas.

And with that end in mind, I can stand this chaos.