Hello everyone!

During one of the rainy days at my vacation I decided to visit the KinderBoekenHuis (ChildrenBooksHome) at Winsum. It wasn’t that far from where I was camping, so I grabbed my boyfriend and we headed out.

Here is a shot of the entrance of the museum, in all my excitement I forgot to take a picture of it, so I found this one at: http://www.dezwartehond.nl/projecten/kinderboekenhuis.html

My first impression, or first idea, of the place would be like a museum of books, children’s books to be specific, and that thought stayed with me until I went inside. Then I found out that this was in a way a museum, but also not. It was more like a home, with shelves upon shelves with books. You could touch them, you could even pick them up and read them, you could grab a comfy chair and just sit down and relax.

Here is a shot of a bit of the layout, again, in all my excitement I forgot to make one, so I grabbed one from the link above. Maybe next year I won’t be too excited to forget to make photographs. 😀

And from now on, I will have pictures that I made. 😛 I came in to see this one as first thing:

I am sure it was supposed to stand outside, but they had propped those signs inside.

I quickly lost myself in all the books. There were so many, and nostalgia hit me hard. Many of the books there were old, but there were also some newer ones. So you can imagine how lovely the smell was at the place. Books already smell good, but older books are a league on their own.

Now following are a couple of bookshelf shots. Fiction/normal books, but also poetry, picture books, books about religion. Of course all for kids. They also had an upstairs part (as you can see on the picture above the sign one) which included non-fiction books.

  

As you can imagine I just stayed right there all the time (while my boyfriend looked at me with a smile, he also checked out some books, but mostly was just sitting on a comfy chair). Sadly it wasn’t open that long, so after a few hours we had to leave. But boy, I did have fun. There were comfy chairs, and several other places were you could just sit, relax, enjoy your books. There was even the option of coffee/tea/other drink stuff, so you really could just camp here and read all you want. They even allow people to borrow the books (of course, nothing for me, as I was only on vacation in the neighbourhood, but I do know that if I lived nearby I would have borrowed and visited some more).

They are reliant on donations by people. If you donate books they will check if they already have the book, and if the version offered is even better (or older) than their current version. If so they will put that version in the shop. As for duplicate books, they get put in the shop they have (Where I found a gorgeous old hardcover with dustjacket version of an Enid Blyton book!). It is a great system, and they really have quite the collection, I think they had around 30k or so books. All of them Dutch of course (translated to Dutch, or original Dutch). So you can imagine you can get lost quite fast in all those books.

There was also a kind lady working at the place, she was busy with cataloguing all the books and making sure people could check them out online (also handy for those people who want to make a donation or want to see what kind of children books they have). She told me all kinds of facts and titbits about the place, and showed us various things. We also had fun chatting for a bit just about books. 🙂

They also had some stuff they were showcasing. Those were located on the right side of the building (well that depends on through which door you came in, but the one we came in through situated that stuff on the right). They also had several really old, antique books that were in special cases that regulated the temperature. The pictures that follow now are from those special collection and antique books part.

As you can see, gorgeous collections, it is really wonderful that they also have these in the collection.

Lastly I have some lovely pictures of the lamps there. Now I hear you say, lamps, Mehsi, why would we want to see lamps? Because these are absolutely fabulous, and I would love them in my home as well. 😛

As you can see, fabulous lamps! They look even better in real life, and when I saw them I just squeed. Book-related lamps for the win! <3

So if you are in my country, or if you live in my country, and are close to Winsum, be sure to check out this amazing place, it is well worth it. Even if you might not be able to read Dutch, just seeing the sheer amount of books, smelling the booksmells, and just checking out the gorgeous books should be more than enough to satisfy a bookworm.

If you want to know more information about this wonderful place, check out their website. The site is Dutch, but I know that Google translate is quite good these days with Dutch > English.