ECR4Kids Double-Sided Mobile Book Display

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!