When did you get rid of picture books for your kids?

[kiraric]

By picture books, I mean the big ones that are mostly pictures and with a sentence or two on each page, not chapter books which have a few

My 5 year old for the last 3 months or so, more or less since he turned 5, basically only wants to have longer chapter books read to him, like Toto the ninja cat or the 13 story treehouse.

I feel like getting rid of our enormous stock of picture books but I am slightly worried that it's too early and he's just going through a phase

Any experiences?

Aww

To be clear, I would always have kept our very favourites for this reason

But we have a lot.. I did a bit of a visual count this morning and I think it might be more in the 300 space (!) because despite the impression I might have given here, I do love a picture book

I think I can get rid of 100 or so just with ones that neither child really clicked with TBH so that's a fair place to start

DS1 has just turned 6 so in year one. We're gradually moving the younger picture books (Julia Donaldson etc) into DS2's room, but he still has a lot of others in his room. We mainly read chapter books or facts style books to him now, but sometimes go back to picture books for a break in between. And he also uses them for reading practice when he's bored of the school reading books.

My 6yo in yr 1 is doing great with her reading (on the last phonics books at school and free reading a little). She still likes picture books though! She still loves them being read to her - I think it's a comfort/nostalgia thing. She also often reads them first thing on a morning when she wakes up, especially if she is the first one awake. She doesn't try to free read chapter books alone yet, so she reads picture books at those times. Definitely Julia Donaldson stories etc are a bit young and mostly just used for our 3yo now but theres plenty of other picture books she still likes.

We never got rid of them, the dc just lost interest in them after a while. I only ever bought 'classics', anything else came from the library, so it's a really lovely collection of beautiful books. They'll sit there on the shelf until my grandchildren need them.

One of my sons was 4 when he moved on to illustrated chapter books, one was 6. The 6 year old was the more fluent reader but preferred the picture books, so I don't think there's any hard and fast rule when to move on.

The picture books are useful when he is learning to read and also when you want to talk about things, discuss the pictures etc.
My DGD is 6 and a fluent reader she can read chapter books by herself but she still loves looking at picture books.

I don't think I'll ever get rid of them - at least not the classic ones or sentimental ones. My youngest is only 3 but once she starts junior school aged 7 then I'll have a clear out and donate any of the ones that we have no attachment to.

I've had a bit of a clear out recently since my Y1 child started enjoying chapter books and can read fluently, as I needed space... but I only got rid of the ones we didn't enjoy as much. In fact when he was ill last week I read him Rabbit's Nap for comfort. He can easily read it himself but he seemed to need to regress a bit, and that's absolutely fine.

I suspect the absolute favourites will migrate to my bookshelves eventually, for nostalgia 😊 (Not for grandchildren... with a six year old I'm very much hoping that doesn't happen for a good 20+ years!)