Features:

  • Put Reading in Reach — 5 wide slots on either side are the perfect height for children and toddlers to see and reach their favorite picture books
  • Timeless Wood Finish — polished hardwood finish fits right into daycares, preschools, homeschools, libraries, kindergartens, playrooms and bedrooms
  • Encourage Early Reading— the forward facing bookshelf lets kids select books for themselves, allowing them to pick up a story and read independently
  • Effortless Mobility — comes with 4 removable casters to easily turn your double sided book display into a rolling literature station
  • Certified and Safe — GREENGUARD[GOLD] Certified for minimal chemical emissions into indoor air; features rounded wooden edges for child safety
  • For Kids and Toddlers — made for kids ages 3 years and older; some adult assembly required; low to the ground to help prevent tipping
  • Overall Dimensions — 36" L x 19" W x 30" H, 38 lbs; shelf dimensions are 35.75" L x 1.25" W x 7.88"
Better Than a Conventional Bookshelf for Toddlers

This bookcase showcases the beautiful picture books in my collection and invariable draws my grandsons to browse and read. My youngest grandson can't resist bringing several books he selects from it for me to read and because of the way it's constructed, it is easy for him to put them back. Our other conventional book shelf is harder to get books in and out of so I have to rotate the collection to be sure all of them getting their share of attention.

Great product

We are very happy with our purchase! It is heavy, and feels solid. A great way to display books and encourage kids to read- the covers are so much more interesting than the spines!

Sturdy, safe, holds lots of books and makes them appealing to pick out

I had been using a smaller bookcase with canvas book holders but needed a much bigger and sturdier bookcase to hold the books for my now two year old that are overflowing my coffee table. After a long search, I finally settled on this one and I am glad I did. It is quite sturdy, holds lots of books, and was relatively straightforward to assemble if you follow the directions plus a couple of tips. Pro: * All pieces are solid wood. The whole stand feels sturdy. I’m sure this will last much longer than my canvas one, the canvas ripped after just a couple of months. It feels less flimsy and seems like it can handle more weight than particle board. * The design allows for a lot of books without taking up much space. If you have an area where you don’t have to put the bookcase against a wall, the double sided design holds a ton of books and yet does not take too much floor space 36” x 19” vs the 15” for the single sided. The five shelves on each side is also one more than the usual four shelves I have seen. Each shelf is still deep enough to hold two board books. Without stuffing, leaving room to easily take out each book, you can still fit a good 90 books. * It feels safe. All of the edges are round. The screws are all recessed. And with these lower bookcase vs the taller ones, there’s no need to anchor it to a wall (if it were single sided), no fear of it toppling over. * All book covers are visible even from the small board books. * The assembly is mostly straightforward. The direction suggested two people for assembly. Having two people may make the last step a bit easier to do but it is pretty painless as a one person job. I am not particularly handy and was able to assemble it in about one hour. It only requires an Allen wrench which is included. However, if you already have a better handheld one, that would be easier on your hands than this which has no handle. There are 26 screws total. The only tricky part is installing the last side board after all five shelves on each side have been screwed into the other side board. My Tip On This Last Step (hopefully to save you some time and pain): - Gently flip the whole structure onto the side so that the current sideboard is flat on the floor and all of the middle shelves and their holes are facing upwards - Take a sharpie and draw a small dot on the ‘bottom’ of each shelve to indicate where the screw holes are. - Put all of the screws into the 13 holes on the sideboard to be installed then gently lay the sideboard on. Not all the screws will immediately fit into their holes and that’s ok. I find that not pushing the top crossbar wooden dowels in first but keeping the sideboard level makes the next step easier. - Using the sharpie dots as a guide, gently push each middle shelves until each screw is lined up with respective hole. Do this for all 13 screws. Then tighten all 13 screws. I find that doing it this way versus lining up and tightening sequentially made it less likely that you end up with the frustration of few screws not lining up. Cons The exposed screws are a little aesthetically not pleasing but that is a small issue. I will update the review once I have used it for a while but for now I am very happy that all of the books fit neatly on the shelves and the book covers are clearly visible for my toddler to easily pick out!

Awesome addition to my child's room

I waffled between four and five stars. While putting this unit together I had more than a few moments where I was thinking very unhappy thoughts about this bookshelf (some of the holes were not 100% aligned), but now that it is done and the memories of construction have faded (a bit!) I love it. The price and the usefulness far outweigh the irritations of construction. :) We have about 50 books on it right now, I could probably add another 20 easily. I do have to sometimes reshuffle the books because by the time my three year old is done the tall books are all in front of the short ones. I feel that these kind of shelves allow for better book rotation as my little guys are much more likely to pick up books they haven't read in a while when they can easily see part of the cover/have their memory jogged as to the book content. I'm very happy with this addition to the room. Keep an eye on the price, it swings around quite drastically.

Awesome Toddler Bookshelf

This is a great toddler book shelf. It can definitely be used up until age 8 and maybe later. The quality of the wood is nice and sturdy. I have no idea if it's real or not, but it looks real and feels solid. I didn't put it together, so I can't say much about that. I can say it took my brother about 40 minutes to put it together and that includes all the times we had to stop as my daughter excitedly tried to "help" her uncle. The back two shelves are definitely way too deep, but that's not a big deal. First of all, I have it on the floor so it's easy to see what's inside. Also, you could technically stuff the inside of the back two shelves with cardboard, styrofoam anything you can cut to size and then place the books on top. So it would raise the books up which was a concern I had when reading reviews, but I decided I'd just use something to elevate the books. However I never ended up doing that because placing it on the floor was good enough. I hope this review is helpful to you. It really is a great buy and in my opinion will last for many years.

He looks very happy for his accomplishment

I bought this for my 13 months old son. He loves it! In the beginning, he was frustrated by books don't come out by pulling. I taught him pick them up instead and he quickly learned. I also taught him to put the books away, and by the third try, he was able to put them back. He looks very happy for his accomplishment, and I'm also happy that I don't have to clean up after his mess!

Sturdy, solid wood, easy assembly

Love ECR4Kids for preschool/ECE furnishings and learning materials. Like other items I've purchased from the company, this single-sided book browser is built to last and withstand serious child's play. PROS * Super durable, solid birch wood (even the thin backings are solid birch plywood) * Holds a great many books for the floor space * Although made for picture books, shelves are deep enough to accommodate chapter & board books * Attractive, neutral, simple design (I much prefer the simplicity over the gaudy colorful canvas book slings this replaced) * Nicely child-proofed, with sunken screws, rounded edges, thorough sanding * Easy & quick to assemble; one line in the instructions indicated "2 adults required" but I was able to assemble by myself with my two children "helping"; no tools or special strength required CONS * Honestly can't think of any! unless it's that the consistent quality of the ECR4Kids label is making me pass on furnishings by other brands :) [ETA: After reading other reviews, I'd like to point out three things: 1. Some here have commented that the thinness of the boards makes them flimsier. But in my experience, the thinness or thickness of a given material matters less than the material itself. That is, you can have a thin board but if it's a hardwood, as this is, it will still be strong. As it happens, birch is an excellent choice for children's furnishings because it is a strong, fine-grained hardwood that -- importantly!! -- can be cut relatively thin. Thinness is actually a good thing here, because it means that the furnishing can be better scaled to children's small bodies... The fact is, if you tried to make this product with thicker boards, you'd end up with thicker shelves, which would mean fewer shelves, and/or shelves that are less accessible to children. Most makers of children's furnishings select birch (or sometimes maple) for this reason. (But maple is much costlier, way out of the price range for many families and preschools/schools.) 2. Others have commented that their displays fell apart soon after construction. With due respect, I wonder if they followed the instructions to use the provided hex tool or another hand tool (rather than a power screwdriver) and to avoid overtightening the hex screws. If you overtighten them, you strip the holes, the screws come loose, and the boards start to fall apart. But as long as you tighten gently, this browser should hold together for many years' use. Pro tip: Don't be afraid to *undertighten* if you're not sure! You can always tighten a screw more later. You cannot, however, undo damage to a stripped screw fitting. 3. A couple of reviews mentioned that this doesn't fit very many books. Although I was able to pack in about 30 books, in my (ECE) view this is PLENTY because the purpose of a browser is to offer a LIMITED selection of books to children from which they can choose without feeling overwhelmed. What a book browser is NOT meant to be is a substitute for a conventional bookcase that stores books with their spines out. So, if you're looking for a solution to your book storage, consider incorporating BOTH a browser and a bookcase: Use the browser to hold a small number of books based on a given theme or your child's interests at the moment (bugs? dinosaurs? fairies? space?), store the rest in the bookcase, and ROTATE the books to keep things fresh. :) Hope these comments help other caregivers! <3 ]

MY FOUR YEAR OLD IS 10x MORE LIKELY TO GET BOOKS HIMSELF FROM THIS BOOKSHELF!

I did a lot of research on this type of display bookshelf and finally decided on this one. There is a big range in materials, size and pricing across sellers on Amazon and elsewhere. This one is not the cheapest but in the low to mid range of pricing. The wood is sturdy and good looking. It is not huge, but quite large enough to fit easily as many books as shown in the photo. Each ledge is a few inches deep so you can display either one book or layer the books of varying sizes to increase the number of books that fit on each shelf. My four year old can easily reach all levels of this bookshelf to get and return the books himself. He is 10x more likely to take a book from this bookshelf then a standard bookshelf where he only sees the spine of the book. The box it arrived in was heavy. If you've ever put anything together from Ikea then you will have no problems putting this together. My four year old helped me put it together in about 20 minutes. It does require following the instructions to make sure you don't put any pieces on backwards or the like. This bookshelf is deeper than a typical bookshelf, and holds fewer books than standard bookshelves would hold, but if you want your kid to be more likely to take books from the shelf on their own, then this is the bookcase to get!

Sturdy, attractive, and holds a LOT of books in a small footprint

After researching many different types of bookshelves for kids I settled on this one, and I'm very glad I did. Not to state the obvious, but this is a "display-type" bookcase in which the books face forward. My 18-month-old daughter has a far easier time selecting a book when she can see the front covers than when she can only see the spines -- and from conversations I've had with other parents, it sounds like a lot of kids are the same way. Most bookshelves of this type are either wooden, cardboard, or a wooden frame with fabric slings for shelves. If you want a sturdy bookshelf, wood is the way to go! Here's what I love about this bookshelf: 1) Did I mention that it's 100% wood? From my experience, cardboard display shelves tend to be pretty flimsy, and the wooden ones with fabric slings tend to cause the books to lean way forward and sometimes even fall out. 2) The shelves have a good depth to them (about 1 3/4"). This is especially important with board books, which tend to be pretty thick. As you can see from one of my photos, you can actually fit two average-thickness board books one behind the other. There are other wooden display shelves out there that are actually too thick for board books! 3) Enormous capacity: Despite this unit not being very tall, it actually has FIVE shelves (most others have only three or four). This means it can hold a huge number of books in a relatively small footprint. 4) The wood is a decent quality; no, it's not mahogany, but it's not pine or balsa either. It is strong enough to withstand a little abuse without being too heavy to move around if needed. It also has smooth edges and slightly rounded corners, making it toddler-safe. 5) Assembly is easy and requires NO additional tools. You simply use the included Allen wrench to install the 18 or so identical screws. Everything fit together nicely and I had no problem lining up the screw holes. My daughter was so excited about this bookshelf that she actually squealed when she first saw it. And I'm pretty excited not to have her books all over the floor anymore! (I did not squeal, however.) My only SMALL complaint is a purely aesthetic one: there are screw heads visible on the fronts of all of the shelves. They are all recessed so there's no safety concern, but they are a bit of an eyesore in an otherwise attractive piece of furniture. Overall I couldn't be happier with this bookshelf and I would buy it again in a heartbeat. Could you spend less money and get a cardboard unit or a wooden one with fabric slings? Certainly, but with this shelf you definitely get what you pay for.

Like it

Not going to lie, it hurt a bit to plunk down so much money for this, but it's worth it if you can afford it. A bit annoying to put together, but not difficult or excessively time-consuming, even by myself. Unlike some other reviewers, I must’ve lucked out with the pre-drilled holes placement because that wasn’t an issue until the very end, when it was time to attach the casters. I will say that the "C" pieces (forming the "pockets" to hold the books) weren't always cooperative about sitting in the grooves, and that occasionally made me think the holes were in the wrong place before I popped them back in. The casters make this extra functional in our home. We live in an apartment with an open layout, so I use this to block off spaces that I don’t want the kid wandering to. It won’t stop a determined kid (an adult can move it easily with one hand), but mine knows what the boundaries are, and this serves as a visual cue and a deterrent. I can move it around all day as I see fit without any hassle or breaking a sweat. Seems very sturdy, and though I haven’t allowed the kid to climb it, I’m not nearly as worried about it tipping as I am about the display stand I bought for the grandparents’ house. It holds larger, grown up books (not just regular paperbacks, but heavy photo books) just fine, too. The only con I can think of is that because the “pockets” are made of wood, you can’t stuff books into them the same way you could with the fabric sling type of display stand; thicker board books may not fit. I don't care for the very visible logo. I'm not sure what the point of that is, and I can't think of any other furniture I've ever owned that felt the need for one. Visible surfaces feel smooth and look nicely finished, though there was some chipping / splintering of less visible surfaces while putting it together.

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