I guess of all the countries I’ve travelled, Japan would be one of the hardest I’ve experienced to access the local book culture. ‘Cos while there are plenty of bookshops, my lack of familiarity with the Japanese language made it very difficult for me to get a sense of the ‘vibe’ of publishing there.
Nevertheless, as part of my general impression about how well kids are looked after in public spaces in Japan, I got a sense of the high priority kids’ books are given. Several places we visited surprised me by including a library of kids’ books, often housed in funky bookshelves.

One day, for example, we found ourselves in a fairly ‘down-market’ (for Japan) suburban shopping centre. (We were looking for a cheap stroller…) On the top floor was a food court and a sort of games parlour, which had as part of it a preschooler play centre. It cost about 800 yen ($8) to get in, which gave your toddler about half an hour of free play and three rides. Anyway… as part of this fairly run-of-the-mill games-parlour/play-centre thing, there was a gorgeous set of shelves, packed full of beautiful, pristine picture books.

Who woulda thunk it? In the context of all that consumerism and hub-bub, it was so nice to think of a space where parents and kids could pick up a book and read together. Pretty jolly nice kids’ bookshelves too!

And Rowan? Yeah, he had a ball…

Kidzania, subject of my previous post, also had some great children’s bookshelves and other storage in their kindergarten.

But probably my favourite example of a place that gives kids’ books their rightful priority was the Kyoto International Manga Museum. This is a new museum, which is a major centre for the study and appreciation of manga (Japanese comics). The Kyoto International Manga Museum is housed in a converted elementary school, and retains a lot of the charm of the old building and grounds. Approximately 300,000 manga volumes are held in the museum, and can be freely read by visitors, which means the halls and grounds are scattered with people intently reading. (It also has manga drawing demonstrations and exhibition of the history and culture of manga creators. There was even a workshop where kids could learn how to animate a short story using 3D objects.)

And for younger visitors, there is a dedicated children’s library. At the door of the library, there is a sign which reads:
“Children younger than elementary school with their parents only.”
I just love the way this is phrased. How important does it make a child feel? And I don’t think I’ve ever felt more welcome and accepted for the sole reason of having a small child in my days as a mum!
The room opened to a welcoming space of clean design. Tall square-shaped bookshelves contained hundreds and hundreds of picture books, many of them favourites of ours at WeHeartBooks: Olivia, Hungry Caterpillar, Happy Lion, and lots more. Cleverly conceived surfaces – including a sloped reading pit, steps, couches and a large cubby house space – allowed a variety of inviting spaces for children to read. And lots of kids and their parents relaxing and enjoying books together. Just the way you want a kids’ library to be.

Thanks to the Kyoto International Manga Museum for the interior shot of the children’s library.

The April edition of Cookie Magazine have done a design feature on bookshelves, One For The Books, perfect shelving units for your child’s tomes and trinkets.

This one was my favorite. See the wallpaper behind, which is pages from the Olivia books by Ian Falconer. What a great idea, although it might be hard getting your head around pulling a book apart.

I wrote a post at Christmas time about Olivia. If you like the Eloise books you will love Olivia, the funkiest, feistiest pig in literature.

If you want something really special, have a look at Teatro Olivia, a play set in which you have six Olivia paper dolls to create your own ballets and theatre. Falconer, whose background is set design, has created a masterpiece with Teatro, stimulating creativity and passion for the arts in his audience.

Katie did a post recently about Eric Carle fabric and there is also Olivia fabric available, I found it here. It’s very gorgeous and it’s about time I bought some.

The very cute toy on the shelf in the picture from Cookie Magazine is made by Mizutamago, a great blog I read regularly.

Seen via Ohdeedoh (via Geekdad) this amazing igloo of bookshelves that incredibly contains a bed, I’m sure you would have sweet dreams sleeping in here. Created by Japanese architects Point . There are more fantastic photos on their website.

Filling my bookshelves was great fun at first. It was a chance to be reunited with old friends, who had been hidden in boxes for so long. I relished the process of re-alphabetising my favourite fiction authors, and finding new ways to categorise my non-fiction subject areas. (Sad, I know…) Rowan saw what mum was doing and thought he’d like to lend a hand… 

So all was going swimmingly… BUT then I got about three-quarters of the way through and realised that ALL MY BOOKS WERE NOT GOING TO FIT!!! The collection for these shelves doesn’t include my board books and picture books (now in the playroom or Rowan’s room), my early/middle readers (now in storage for when Rowan is old enough) or the reference books (in the study).

Brad would die if I suggested we needed more bookshelves, and, truth be told, I don’t think I want any either. I like the feature of this wall of books and I’d like it to be self-contained. So I began the heart-breaking process of sifting through, shelf by shelf, to find some volumes that might be better off at the second-hand bookshop. Books I’d never read, would never find an occasion to lend, and if I was quite honest with myself, would never be read by me… Having completed the first cull, I still have about 60 or so books that don’t fit.  

It’s not such a fun job any more.

We’ve been in our house nearly a year now, during which time we have had to do lots of renovations to a 1940s building. A continuing project (saga) has been new built-in bookshelves for around our fireplace in the main lounge room.

We were spoilt in our old house in the bookshelf department because when we moved in there were already some massive shelves that had been built in beside the fireplace there. In that case, it was a Victorian terrace, and therefore had high, high ceilings, high enough to fit all my books.

This time, I was inspired to go with the same format of shelves on either side of the fireplace, and wanted to find something in keeping with the style of the house. We have casement windows with small panes, and we decided to go for that look, so we will have shelves that have three ‘rows’ on each side, to create squarish shelves. Cupboards underneath are designed to fit my Zetta Florence photo albums… The vision is to have ‘library’ lights at the top (something along these lines).

As usual when I think of doing a work in progress shoot, I forgot to take the ‘before’ photo. But here it is in progress, with the horizontal shelves missing as they are in the paint workshop. Will post a photo of the finished product in due course… my painter promises it will be before Christmas.