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 readers’ 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 #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.

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 #21:

Rishab
11 years old
Dubai, United Arab Emirates

We are an Indian family settled in Dubai. I would like to showcase my son’s bookshelf. In his own words:

My name is Rishab, I am 11 years old and I live in Dubai with my parents.

“You know you’ve read a good book when you turn the last page and you feel a little as if you have lost a friend” said  Paul Sweeney.

I couldn’t agree more, I heart books. Period.

My secret fear/nightmare is a world without books, It would indeed be a sad place. My book shelf is an indication of how my taste has evolved over time. I started off like any other child with the Encyclopedia and the `Tell me series’.  I was introduced to Enid Blyton early and I still cherish her books. I had my staple of Dinosaurs and Harry Potter. (Still have a crush on Dinos). I have moved on to other genres namely Humour, Horror, Mystery, Adventure etc. Roald Dahl remains  one of my favourites, I’m in love with Greg Heffley (Diary of a Wimpy Kid) &  Big Nate. Anthony Horowitz, R.L.Stine and Joseph Delaney are my all time favourites. And then there is Thomas Rockwell, H.G.Wells, Ruskin Bond, Steve Cole, Deepak Dalal, R.K.Narayan, Dr Abdul Kalam, Robin Sharma and the list is never ending.

My father has been urging me to start with e books much to my dismay. The joy of holding a book, flipping the pages and the sweet smell of books can never be replaced. If only school books could be replaced with story books….. aah if only……! That wish of mine will remain a fantasy, but what I do know is I will have the largest collection of books in my lifetime.

P.S: Oh by the way, Thursdays are my favourite day at school, because we get to visit the library .

And did I tell you that I wear spectacles with power  - 4.50 & – 4.75 respectively. Go Figure !

Submitted by: Rishab and his mother

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 a 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 to our Around the World in 100 Bookshelves, click here.

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

I am a blogger from India and felt like sharing my children’s 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 them 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 #18:
Buddy and Puck
8 years old and 5 years old
Philadelphia, PA, USA

I’d love to join your Around the World Bookshelf tour! I am sending you a picture of one of our living room bookshelves. This is the shelf next to the futon that has some of the boy’s easy readers and non fiction books plus a few of the small collectable books I have saved for them. I like to scatter musical instruments among the books… makes for interesting evenings.

Submitted by: Andi at A Wrung Sponge

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

P.S. Don’t forget to take a look at our 1,000th post, with the chance of winning a Spirit of PaperTigers 2010 book set…

Bookshelf #17:
Neil
2 years old
Bangalore, India

The attached pictures are of Neil’s section on our book shelf – considering he is 2 years old we think this is a good beginning He loves reading books and nap time includes reading a book or 2 before going to sleep. Neil loves being read to and flipping through books on his own – thanks to a book lover mom. I am always on the look out for more books coz I get bored of reading them over and over again. His dad doesn’t touch books or reading material except the daily newspaper. But he does read out to N and makes up bedtime stories for him

Submitted by: Simran

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

Bookshelf #16:
Anushka
5 years 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.