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Bookshelf #28:
D. and S.
9 years old and 8 years old
Bangalore, India

The kids’ bookshelves are dual purpose shelves, filling a space on top of the stairs that we didn’t want either the kids or the puppy to tumble out of. The raised ledge there meant that the custom built shelves don’t take up valuable floor space, fitting well into an otherwise unusable space. The rocking chair, a hanging chair in another corner and a futon make this space a cozy space to read, do charts and homework with our ‘research’ being close by. One of our favourite spaces in the house.

My children are readers, one from very early on and the other needing some intervention to go from reluctant reader to engaged reader in the past year or two. One major reason (in my opinion) is access to books and the availability of a variety of books in our house. When the right book comes along, it is impossible to not pick it up! As a result of thinking things through, I got to read books that I missed reading when I was growing up like the entire Anne of the Green Gables series and Little House on the Prairie.

Submitted by: Sangitha, blogging at Life and Times in Bangalore

For details on how to submit a photo of your child’s bookshelf to our Around the World in 100 Bookshelves, click here.

Bookshelf #27:
A.
11 years old
Bangalore, India

Here are some of my daughter’s treasures that I would like to share. Pardon the relative disarray: I haven’t got around to making bookshelves yet. These are housed in wardrobes that were cleansed of any clothes and other inconsequential stuff. The first photo is books at hand that A. has earmarked as ‘to be read over the next few weeks’. Note the Bill Bryson book at the far right in the upper row:  A Really Short History of Nearly Everything. The second photo is of  books A. has read. The third photo is the other half of the shelf shown in photo 2. Harry Potter books, Arthur Ransome’s Swallows and Amazons series are behind these as is our collection of picture books by the Indian publishers. The thin red and white books obscured by the issue of Tell Me Why are our collection of the Amelia Bedelia books.

Submitted by: Sandhya, blogging  at  Saffron Tree and My Handful of the Sky!

For details on how to submit a photo of your child’s bookshelf to our Around the World in 100 Bookshelves, click here.

Bookshelf #26:

Prarthana
5 years old
Mumbai, India

This is my 5 year old daughter Prarthana’s bookshelf. She has been an avid book lover since she was very very young! I still have the few odd cloth books that she used to chew on (quite literally!) when she was a baby. As an avid story teller herself – books are just a gateway to her imagination. Every time she picks up a new or old book, she builds up from the pictures to spin her very own unique yarns! Now that she has started to read, re-visiting books is an adventure again. I can see the joy in her eyes every time she can read a new word or decipher a phrase. She has now truly begun her journey into losing herself in a world of words and alternate realities. And it is with great pride that I observe her swelling yet well thumbed down bookshelf!

Submitted by: Nidhi at Momming around in Mumbai 

For details on how to submit a photo of your child’s bookshelf to our Around the World in 100 Bookshelves, click here.

Bookshelf #24:
Mia Wenjen (Pragmatic Mom)
Boston, MA, USA

Mom of three, Mia Wenjen is better known in the kidlit blogging world as Pragmatic Mom.  She blogs on “picture books through YA with a special focus on Newbery/Caldecott/Printz quality books, Asian & people of color characters/authors, special needs, graphic novels and math/science.”

“I started reading children’s lit again…when I realized I was giving my oldest Newbery Award Winning books that were her reading level, but were inappropriate because of content. As my middle child started reading independently, she was so picky that I had to wrack my brain to get her books she likes. And my youngest, who is just starting to read, has gone on a reading strike lately. So, there you have it.  It’s always a challenge to find “just-right” books and that has become my life.”

Submitted by:  PragmaticMom, Education Matters. You can also follow her on Twitter (PragmaticMom) and Facebook (PragmaticMom)

For details on how to submit a photo of your child’s bookshelf to our Around the World in 100 Bookshelves, click here.

If you scroll down our blog page and look at the widgets on the right-hand side you will see one entitled “Around the World in 100 Bookshelves”. What is this you ask?

We started our Around the World in 100 Bookshelves project in 2009 in the hopes of featuring 100 of our reader’s bookshelves from, well, around the world! It is our hope that our combined photos will offer a glimpse of a big world made smaller through books and reading. So far we have received pics from India, Canada, UK, Philippines, Hong Kong, Sweden, the United Arab Emirates, Jamaica and the USA (click on the “Around the World in 100 Bookshelves” widget or here to see all the photos submitted to date).

Whether your child has too many or too few, in shelves or piles, tidy or scattered on the floor, we would love it if you could send us a photo of their books! Email the photo in .jpg format along with your child’s first name, age, city and country, to corinne(at)papertigers(dot)org and we’ll post the photo here on our blog. If you have a kidlit blog please let us know and we will include that link too. Don’t worry about capturing the whole bookshelf/book collection in the photo. A partial image, along with a reading-related anecdote and/or a few lines describing the bookshelf’s content, should be enough to help us connect across languages and cultures. We hope to feature bookshelves from all over, so please help us spread the word!

Bookshelf #23:

Araba
22 years old
Mandeville, Jamaica to Spokane, WA, USA

When I learned of the Paper Tigers “Around the World in 100 Bookshelves” project, I had to submit a photo of my favorite childhood bookshelf! Not only do the books reflect storytelling traditions from countries all over the world, but the bookshelf itself has a globetrotting past. It was handpainted by a Jamaican artist, using images and Adinkra symbols from Ghana (my family’s home), and traveled with me all the way to Spokane, WA, USA, where it still resides. Nowadays, it holds beloved stories from picture books to novels, reminding me how fortunate I am to have grown up with a good read always at hand!

Submitted by: Rachel Phillips, currently working with Mmofra Foundation in Ghana, Africa

 For details on how to submit a photo of your child’s bookshelf to our Around the World in 100 Bookshelves, click here.

 

Bookshelf #22:

Vignesh
3 years old
Dubai, United Arab Emirates

I would like to share my son’s bookshelf for your series ‘Around the World in 100 Bookshelves’. My son Vignesh will turn 4 this Sep. I introduced Vignesh to the world of books when he turned 1 yr.

We started off with pictorial books about animals, colours & shapes and nursery rhymes. And graduated to mazes, puzzles, short stories of Birbal, Mulla Nasruddin, Panchatantra, Tenali rama (Indian folklore), Bambi, but the current flavor is Dora & Billy Goat Gruff!!! He is totally enamoured with books about the seven wonders of the world, cars and machines.

I hope he sustains the interest in the years to come.

Submitted by: Supriya

For details on how to submit a photo of your child’s bookshelf to our Around the World in 100 Bookshelves, click here.

Bookshelf #20:
Tanu
10 years old
Maryland, USA

This is my 10 year old daughter’s bookshelf. These are just few of them. She is a voracious reader and had been introduced into reading from her very early years. Apart from bringing in tons of books from the neighbourhood library , she has her books lying all around the house. Some could be found lying in piles behind her bed, a portion of a corner of the couch, bathroom, you name it and she has her books there. This is probably the neatest spot of her collection.

She has transcended from the usual Judy Moody and Ramona into more matured levels of reading. Reader’s Digest, National Geographic, and mythologies are turning into some of her favourites these days. Here is a glimpse of her favourite corner….her bookland.

Submitted by: Tanu’s Mom

For details on how to submit a photo of your child’s bookshelf, click here.

Bookshelf #19
The Brat and the Bean
6 years old and 4 years old
Guragon, India

I am a blogger from India and felt like sharing my childrens’ bookshelves with you. They love reading and I love reading to them. I’ve been gifted a lovely globe by a friend and it is always handy to point out spots when we’re reading a story about a particular country. I am very particular about tidying up their book racks once a fortnight or so and my husband finds it hilarious that I “waste” a perfectly good Sunday morning doing this. Ironically, he’s begun to devote his Sunday morning to helping me out and enjoys it when the kids discover a long-forgotten book at the bottom of the heap. At which point the three of them take themselves off to the bed to read. I don’t mind continuing to tidy up by myself. It’s worth it to just listen to the three of murmuring and turning pages.

My children are referred to as the Brat and the Bean on my blog and I’d prefer to keep it that way. My son, known as The Brat is 6 and far from a brat – a gentle, animal loving, peace loving child. The excitable Bean is my 4 year old daughter who believes that you don’t enter a room so much as make an entrance. We live in Gurgaon (India), part of the NCR or the National Capital Region, that includes National Capital territory of Delhi and its adjoining urban areas.

Submitted by: The Mad Momma. (The Mad Momma is also a contributor to Saffron Tree, a potpourri of book reviews and literary resources for children for a lifelong love of reading.)

For details on how to submit a photo of your child’s bookshelf, click here.

Bookshelf #16:
Anushka
5 yrs old
Bangalore, India

As you can see we are not very neat with the way the books are organized, but they are broadly classified into Indian tales, Nonsense verse and tales from the US, Pop ups and so on.  And there is more than meets the eye since the shelf is deep enough to house a second stack of books behind as well…..

Anushka when she was about 3, had an imaginary friend Gunnu Kishore and the red ‘post’ box which is a tribute to that phase, also holds books and some random stuff that is dear to her. Anushka’s favourite books right now are Too Many Bananas (Pratham ) and Chika Chika Boom Boom.

It is wonderful to watch her take sure steps into reading by herself. And she even tries to read aloud board books to her baby sister!

Submitted by: Artnavy, Contributor at Saffron Tree

For details on how to submit a photo of your child’s bookshelf, click here.

Bookshelf #15:
Finlay
Burley-in-Wharfedale, United Kingdom

Attached is a photo of one of my little boy’s bookcases. Finlay loves books. I originally had his books stored in a traditional bookcase but found he pulled them all out on the floor looking for the ‘perfect’ book. Having seen the big book bunkers at children’s libraries I realised that toddlers select books to read by looking at their covers, so I went to the supermarket and picked up a banana crate and stored his books, forward-facing, in there. I realised there was a gap in the market for an actual product that fulfilled that function, so I researched, developed and last month launched a product -bigbooklittlebookcardboardbox – which is available for sale in the UK at www.bigbooklittlebookcardboardbox.co.uk

Submitted by: Frances

For details on how to submit a photo of your child’s bookshelf, click here.

We Heart Books is hosting a virtual world tour of children’s bookshops. They say: “Here’s your chance to help compile a list of the best children’s bookshops in the world. Nominate your favourite children’s bookshops anywhere in the world… and spread the word if you know others who might like to have a say too!” All you need to do to participate leave a comment on their blog with the name, address and website of the store, and a short paragraph about your reasons for nominating it (please note that they are looking for specialist children’s bookshops, rather than generalist ones).

So far they’ve had nominations from Australia, Canada, France, Singapore, the UK and the US. The picture of Kids Republic, in China, makes quite an impression, and Singapore’s Woods in the Books, specializing in picture books for children and adults sounds wonderful, too! Now… who is going to volunteer to create a wonderful logo for the project? It certainly deserves one!

They are using a Google Map to chart the itinerary for the “Greatest Children’s Bookshops” World Tour, so I encourage you to keep an eye on it. It should prove a lovely way of finding new reasons to travel!

This project, come to think of it, reminds me of our Around the World in 100 Bookshelves. We are still looking forward to your photos!

The winners of our second “Around the World in 100 Bookshelves” book draw are Morgan and Alastrin, from Windsor, Ontario, Canada. Their prize—a selection of 5 multicultural books—will be on its way shortly. Thanks, Kathleen, for submitting a photo of their bookshelf. It’s wonderful to see a two- and a three-year-old already hooked on books!

All photo entries, excluding previous winners’, are entered in our bimonthly draw, regardless of when they were submitted, so we encourage you to send us a picture of your kid/kids’ home library (whatever format it may take in your household). We look forward to featuring it here and to further connecting through books and reading!

To see all bookshelf photos submitted to date, click on the “Around the World in 100 Bookshelves” logo on the sidebar, and for more details on the project and the idea behind it, check out our call-out , as well as Janet’s post “Looking at Bookshelves and Wondering“.

Bookshelf #11:
Anav and Kanva
4 year old and 2 years old
Bangalore, Karnataka, India

This used to be the place for the gods & slowly got replaced by books
as the 2 little ones took over. They have a mixture of Indian &
western books; English till now. The books area is just a foot above
the ground & it gives them a chance to squat on the floor while
reading ;o)

Submitted by: Ranjini

For details on how to submit a photo of your child’s bookshelf, click here.

Five year-old Shashank, the winner of our first “Around the World in 100 Bookshelves” book draw, received his books! The following is a note from his father:

The books have arrived, and they are so wonderful! Thank you very much! I have already read them several times to Shashank. His favorite one is ‘Homes,’ and the page he likes the most is the one where crying clouds make rain!. Take a look at all the new books on our bookshelf!

Thanks for the feedback, Prashanth! It’s great to see Shashank smiling, with his new favorite book in hand!

Readers, take note: on Jul 15th we will draw a new winner, so keep sending us photos of your children’s bookshelves. They could be the next to win a set of age-appropriate multicultural books!

Here is a list of the books we sent to Shashank:

Homes, by Yang-Huan, illustrated by Hsiao-yen Huang

Speak Chinese, Fang Fang! written and illustrated by Sally Rippin

No English by Jacqueline Jules, illustrated by Amy Huntington

Colors, Colores! by Jorge Luján

Loongie, The Greedy Crocodile by Lucy and Kiefer Dann, illustrated by Bronwyn Houston

Last weekend The Vancouver Sun newspaper published an interesting article entitled “What do kids love most? Their parents reading to them.” Nick Vinocur reported on the results from a recent study that surveyed 500 children aged three to eight in Britain and found that half of the children said story time was their favorite pastime with their parents! Almost two-thirds of the children polled said they wanted their parents to spend more time reading to them before bed and 82% said reading a story with their parents helped them to sleep better. Storytelling ranked higher than television or video game amongst pastimes for kids and the best storytellers, according to the children surveyed, were mothers who used funny voices to illustrate different characters or made their own special sound effects to keep the story moving.

Child psychologist Richard Woolfson led the study and says:

The results of our research confirm the traditional activity of storytelling continues to be a powerful learning and emotional resource in children’s lives. It can be very difficult for parents to find the time to read with their children, but these moments can help build strong bond and play a vital part in their child’s development.

Click here to read the entire article.

I had to include the photo of my husband reading to our son Evan as it is one of my favorites and I still find it hard to believe that my first-born is now 12 years old. How time flies! Such fond memories…

Speaking of photos, don’t forget to submit a photo of your child’s bookshelf for our Around the World in 100 Bookshelves project. You will be automatically entered in a drawing to win a selection of 5 age-appropriate books to add to your little one’s bookshelf! See the sidebar for more details.

Today we are thrilled to announce the winner of our first “Around the World in 100 Bookshelves” book draw. The lucky child is 5 year-old Shashank, from Bangalore, India. Congratulations, Shashank! PaperTigers will be sending five multicultural picture books for you to add to your bookshelf! Please let us know what you (and your friend Mickey Mouse) think of the stories, when you’ve had a chance to read them!

So far, we have heard from The Philippines, Canada, the UK, US, Sweden and India. We want to see bookshelves from all corners, though, and to hear about the books that inhabit them, so please keep those photos coming! Your young bibliophile could be the winner of our next book draw, which will happen on Jul 15.

To see all bookshelf photos submitted to date, and to catch a glimpse of a world made smaller through books and reading, click on the “Around the World in 100 Bookshelves” logo, on the sidebar.

Bookshelf #8:
Carlos Miguel
1 year & 7 months old
Manila, Philippines

Being a bibliophile myself, I would like my little boy to grow up around books. I would like to instill in him the passion for reading. Books develop and broaden horizons and for little ones, I believe that starting them young will help them as they grow older. I have taken snapshots of little Miguel’s own book collection. He shares a couple of shelves from me so his books will have their own places in the house. Being 1 year and 7 months old, his books range from coloring books to the educational/learning starter books such as the ABCs. The shelf above contains his coloring books, learning the alphabet and numbers books, beginner’s shapes books, board books of trucks, dogs and kittens, illustration books and flashcards with Barney’s photo, too. It also contains the kiddie books we bought from our MV Doulos trip.

This middle shelf contains his other mini board books and some glitter books. He also has some books featuring Winnie D Pooh and friends.

The bottom shelf contains his I Wonder Why books, a gift from his aunt. Also, it houses some baby-kiddie books meant for my reading.

As a mom, I am proud to say that he can now fully recite the ABC, count 1-15, recognize shapes!

Submitted by: Frances
http://ivan-ulrich.blogspot.com

For details on how to submit a photo of your child’s bookshelf, click here.

Bookshelf #7:
Clarke
4 yrs. old
Los Angeles, CA, USA

My husband built and painted this bookshelf to Clarke’s specifications. It had to “look like a zebra.” Currently, Clarke especially enjoys reading Mo Willems’s Elephant & Piggie series, as well as the Dr. Seuss “Beginner Books.”

Submitted by: Candace
http://www.bookbookerbookest.blogspot.com

For details on how to submit a photo of your child’s bookshelf, click here.

Bookshelf #6:
Albin
12 yrs. old
Stockholm, Sweden

This bookshelf belongs to Albin, who is 12 years old. As you can see, Japanese manga is a favourite… But also Cressida Cowell, Cornelia Funke and J.K. Rowling, as well as Swedish writers like Niklas Krog. Since I work in a library I don’t buy a lot of books for my children - we borrow them at the library instead. When I asked him which book he likes the best he thought about it quite a while and then said it was Airman by Eoin Colfer.

Submitted by: Anna G. Chen

For details on how to submit a photo of your child’s bookshelf, click here.

A recent addition to our blog is Around the World in 100 Bookshelves, where parents are encouraged to send photos of their children’s bookshelves, along with the name and age of their child. It is already becoming wildly popular, with snapshots coming in from all corners of the world, and I am always eager to see the latest bookshelf, or variant thereof–parents are quite creative in ways to store their offspring’s book collections! (My oldest son’s first books were kept in his little red wagon, which he was too small to use for conventional purposes.)

My reaction is curious as well as delighted, and comments from other viewers convey the same yearning to know what are the titles of some of the books in these pictures. And beyond that question is which of these titles are most requested as bedtime stories or daytime readalouds?

Which of these books does the owner spend time poring over, perhaps knowing them by heart? If they are owned by someone who can read the words, which of them is most read aloud to her parents or his younger siblings–or to a pet dog or cat for that matter!

Please tell us which books are most popular in your household? Which one can you recite from menory as you read it aloud to your child? And, while you’re at it, if you haven’t sent us a picture of your child’s library, we are eager to see it–and so are other parents around the world.

Let’s find out if a child in Bangalore loves the same book as a child in Brooklyn–and what books a mother in the Philippines most enjoys reading aloud to her children. The world is full of wonderful books and the children who love them–which are your child’s favorites?

Bookshelf #5:
Pranav
6 yrs. old
Bangalore, India

Submitted by: Anandhi Yagnaraman

For details on how to submit a photo of your child’s bookshelf, click here.

Huberta the Hippo is one of South Africa’s most beloved animals. Likely born in Natal, this hippo came to public notice in 1928 when she started wandering for two and a half years down the Natal coast to the eastern Cape — a journey of over 1000 kms. Conspicuous enough to be spotted with some regularity, she gathered something a following, often dogged by curious onlookers who’d poke and prod her when she was hiding in the bushes. No one knew what prompted Huberta’s epic journey, which sadly came to an untimely end on the Keiskamma River in April 1931. By the time of her death, she’d become a popular symbol of courage and fortitude.

Using the story of this well beloved figure of South African animal lore, children’s book illustrator Sarah Garson helped coordinate a children’s picture book project for the Keiskamma Aids and Treatment Centre in Hamburg, South Africa. Hamburg is located on the Keiskamma River and its inhabitants are familiar with Huberta’s tale. Working with patients from the centre, Garson led the group in drawing and doing embroidery about the story. The embroideries were then scanned, text added, and then bound into a picture book. Later, children from the local school contributed to the project by making masks related to the story which were used for performances.

Developing this children’s book using embroidery and drawing is part of the work of the Keiskamma Trust whose vision is to use art in the aid of healing, particularly of those suffering from the scourge of AIDS. The putting together of this children’s book about Huberta the Hippo helped consolidate the bonds of this community in a unique and delightful way. The wandering hippo has found a home in a new interpretation of her journeys in the embroidered artwork of the people of Hamburg.

Cherie
3 1/2 yrs
Delhi, India

Here is our bookshelf. It’s actually not a shelf, but a couple of drawers salvaged from a termite- ridden dresser, lined up on the floor for easy access. We used to have them in a cabinet, but our last major haul was temporarily piled up here, while we played at having a book fair at our house. I found that this was much easier to use and encouraged more reading, as it was actually in the playing area, so I let it be, and arranged a little sitting space around it. As you see, we started painting them, and then the project got shelved The background shows the latest artwork, and a couple of Rajasthani puppets we picked up recently. And that is my little one ‘reading’ a favourite (on account of its various pull-out sections).

The books we have, with a few exceptions, are totally dependent on what was available at the book fairs we attended last year, and at bargains, rather than our choice. But they all have nice pics to look at, so that is alright. Mostly fiction, a few small encyclopedias and even fewer science books. Of course I want more of these books, but now I am also looking for biographies, science, math and discovery/invention books.

Submitted by:

Swati
http://hellonetbaby.blogspot.com

For details on how to submit a photo of your child’s bookshelf, click here.