
Although we know that teaching children to read is critical for their success as adults, a study published in the Social Science Research journal surveying 31 different societies showed that there are actually academic benefits to simply growing up in a home that has its own library of books.
In addition to this fascinating research, I have my own motivation for creating a home library: the public library is not what it used to be.
As a child my mom took us on regular visits to our town library, and once I could ride around on my bike she let me go there alone to read and stock up my backpack with as many books as I could carry home. I was an avid (and fast!) reader and I have fond memories of reading through the shelves from one end to the other.
Sadly, I would never let my children do this. Our current library is one of the largest circulating libraries in the United States, with access to books housed in twenty different locations. We do visit our library as a family, but it is mostly just to pick up the big piles of book requests that we place through their app. I am very aware that what we read influences who we become, and unfortunately libraries today are filled with many books that promote disrespectful or inappropriate behavior, or introduce adult concepts to our children from a worldview that is the opposite of what we find in God’s Word.
I want to give my children books that encourage or challenge them to become people of good character and are also well written to improve their literacy skills.
You can build a home library
Over the years we have built a home library that contains over a thousand childrens books. Since we live in a very small house we have had to get creative about how to contain our books! Shelves that reach to the ceiling and baskets full of books placed in nearly all the rooms have helped us make it work.
We read aloud together as a family as well as individually, and I love coming upon conversations where siblings are recalling characters or scenarios from books they remember reading years ago, or one that they are in the middle of now.
Reading is a way of life.
The challenge for average moms like me, however, is how to build up that desired home library without spending a lot of money!

How to choose quality books
If you’re making an effort to fill your shelves with books, you want to make sure that the books meet your standards of what you desire your kids to read. I have spent a lot of time online reading reviews and making lists of books I hope to own. Book lists like this one from The Good and The Beautiful are so helpful in making this process easier and faster! They have made a huge list of books that are uplifting, clean, well written, and parent approved.
As we went through the list we first looked to see what was available through our library (and made notes of the books that were not in their system). This served two purposes: it got new reading material into my children’s hands right away without spending a penny, and it sent a message to the library that these quality books are still desired by its patrons!
Any books that were not available went onto my master wishlist. I also added in books that my children especially loved after reading them from the library so that we could eventually own our own copies.
Keeping this list on my phone means that if I can always quickly look to see if a book I happen to come across is one that I want to own.
Where do I find cheap books?
There are two ways to grow your library: with locally purchased books or with books that are shipped to you from online sources.
Any time I am at a thrift store I always check their book selections. Libraries in our area also have sections with books for sale, and the homeschool co-ops will sometimes host large book sales. I have found that local resources almost always have the cheapest prices when it comes to buying books!
If I see a book that is not familiar to me but looks like a good possibility, I will often use my phone to quickly look it up with an online review site like Redeemed Reader or Focus on the Family’s Plugged In. This can help me decide if it is something I want to bring home. Of course, if the books are free or very inexpensive I just bring them home to review there and then donate back any that aren’t a good fit for our family.

Of course, online book shopping is the easier route to take when it comes to building your library. I make regular purchases from ThriftBooks. Most of their books are around the $3-4 dollar range and shipping is free on orders over $15. They also offer the incentive of free books with their Reading Rewards program (if you sign up through that link you get a free book credit after your first $30 spent). The ThriftBooks app on my phone has made it very easy to access the site, although we’ve been ordering books from them long before there was an app to download!
Other online book sources are AbeBooks, which specializes in rare and out of print books, and Better World Books, a book selling company that donates a book to a person in need for every book you buy, but neither of these have swayed me from my stance as a dedicated ThriftBooks shopper!
How do I organize my books?
After years of slowly building our collection I began to lose track of what books we already owned. It only took a few double purchases before I realized I needed an organization tool that was easy enough for a mom of ten to keep up with! Thankfully we found a free app called Libib. As soon as I downloaded Libib from my phone’s app store we had a book scanning party! The app has an ISBN barcode scanner that makes my childhood dream of being a librarian feel like its coming true. š
Now when we’re wondering if we already own a book we can easily look it up… and we can also have the satisfaction of watching our collection grow.




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