Thank you for a copy of this book in exchange for honest feedback. I think that this young reader's book has a good message about decluttering and keeping your space organized, as well as not having too much emphasis on material things. I think that in addition to a parenting guidance in accordance with the things in this book, this could be a good set of guidelines for a young person's lifestyle habits. There are some things other than nagging about cleaning, which I think is really good for keeping a young person's attention. These things include quizzes and spaces to write your own notes. Honestly, there are a lot of things in this book that I need to adopt in my own life. I think overall this is a decent set of guidelines that are bolstered by quizzes, spaces to write answers to prompts, and a good layout to convey info.

A great book to teach older elementary/ tweens basic organization skills. The book focuses on removing items that are unused and curating a collection and space that is truly meaningful. I greatly enjoyed this book and think that the life skills and thought processes that it teaches are invaluable lessons for those just beginning to have their own belongings.

Helpful book for middle grade and older kids to take ownership of their rooms and their things. The framework is for the kid to imagine their dream room, and then work through the steps to declutter, organize, and finally design that dream. There are multiple pages where the kid is asked to draw something, and lots of journal type spaces for answering questions.
There's a lot of good ideas in here, and kid-friendly references and thoughts from two of the author's own kids.
I didn't find the room photos to be realistic - quite a few of them seemed like a decorator's version of what a stylish preteen room would be, but not what an actual kid would likely choose.
This is similar to Casazza's Declutter Like a Mother book, just spinning the content to be more kid-focused and bedroom/toy specific.

As a reader of Declutter Like a Mother, I was thrilled to receive an ARC of Be the Boss of Your Stuff!

The journal format was absolutely brilliant and helped me guide my eight year old boy into making his own decisions.

The color photos were beautifully done and the content helped him work through the overwhelm he gets when trying to clean and organize his room.

I have now preordered this book so that we will have a physical copy to refer back to every six months!

There were some parts of the book that I just could not foresee a child implementing, even with the help of their parents, a little sceptical there.
However, overall, most of the suggestions listed wasn't just about physical declutter, but also about emotional and mental declutter.
Good for kids, parents, and anyonr really.
Way more reasonable than the marie kondo keep the 30 books (or something) you love... eesh...

Be The Boss of Your Stuff: The Kids Guide to Decluttering and Creating Your Own Space! Beautiful pictures of children's rooms.

The comments from the authors children really help reinforce points made; a wonderful addition to this book for children.

If you keep everything, it’s overwhelming. How can you enjoy and treasure your things if you have so many things you are overwhelmed by them? Keep only the things that you use and that you would miss.

I kept thinking that this is the Marie Kondo book for kids. This book is genius and perfect. I wish that I had read this when I was a kid. I’m a 50+ yr old adult with no kids, but took points away from this book. (and signed up for the author's podcasts!)

Maybe it sounds trite, but I like the comments that the author has added such as … Done and done! Congratulations! Good work! In thinking back to my childhood, things I did never seemed quite good enough, so I may have developed some bad habits. If you are never complimented or have an opportunity to feel proud of what you did, (in my opinion) then you are less likely to develop good habits. So the child reading this book may be short on compliments, it is sad if this book is where a child might be finding positive reinforcement. But if they are finding it here, my heart goes out to them … but I have a feeling that they need it.

I also like that the pictures of the children’s rooms are not something unobtainable; they are bright and fun.

Page 135 is titled Buy Thoughtfully IRL (I needed to google … In Real Life). Yes, I'm old.

Page 140-141 are some of my favorite pages in the book. “Doing one positive thing will motivate you to do something else good.” And “It’s really all about respecting yourself and your space.” … “Respect is also a way to show you care.”

Allie Casazza is also the author of Declutter Like a Mother and the podcast host of The Purpose Show. Thank you to NetGalley for introducing me to Allie!

Thank you to NetGalley, Allie Casazza the author and the publisher Thomas Nelson Childrens for the opportunity to read Be The Boss of Your Stuff in exchange for an honest review. Publication date is 01 Mar 2022.

Thank you, Tommy Nelson/Thomas Nelson, for the advance reading copy.

For someone who still struggles with keeping the room all organised as an adult, I do feel the need of such books to be introduced at the right time at the right age. I wish I read a few books on basic life skills that nobody would actually teach you as you grow up unless you have an adult who looks into these things more strictly.

I like the illustrations. The best parts of the book are the prompts in the form of QnAs (questions and answers) in between the chapters to encourage the reader.

The book focuses more on decluttering and basic organisation of the bedrooms. Love the real different pictures of different bedrooms.

The book can be used as a journal as it has all the basic journal prompts and spaces provided.

I can't wait to add Be the Boss of Your Stuff to my classroom library. It's a part of children's literature that we need to see more of; helping kids become aware of themselves and their ability to improve their current situations. Kids will feel empowered and capable after reading Be the Boss of Your Stuff. It was formatted well and tackled a lot of social emotional topics in addition to the main focus of creating a bedroom space that works for them (and their grown-ups).

Really cute book on decluttering. Definitely helpful and worth every penny spent. Can’t wait for it to come out and everyone see this genius

This is an okay book geared towards children to help them learn to declutter and design their rooms. It has a lot of places where you're supposed to write down how you feel in your room or draw a picture of yourself in your room, which some kids will like and others will find annoying. There are some stock images of children's rooms and a few of the author's kids' rooms, though I wish they were of the whole room and not one small bit. They did feel staged. For instance, the author's daughter likes to do art and it shows her desk but the desk has one artful vase of colored pencils fanned out and one artful vase of number two pencils fanned out on it, and basically nothing else. What artist needs an entire vase of perfectly fanned number two pencils? If we're going to be minimalist, how about keep two and then fill the vase with things you actually need like pens, paintbrushes, etc.? It just looked like it was done for Instagram or a blog post, not like an actual used space.

It's a nice touch that two of the author's kids contribute to the book. She is friendly to the reader. I appreciate that she tells parents not to try to control their kids' spaces or get rid of any of their stuff, which is ironic because she became famous in the first place after a blog post went viral about how she got rid of almost all of her children's belongings.

All in all, I like this book a lot more than her book for adults, which read like one long ad for her paid courses and almost no helpful information. This one recommends her courses and podcasts too, of course, but has more actual advice.

Her takeaway for kids is that the more stuff you have, the more time you have to spend cleaning it. There's also a focus on spending time designing your room, painting it, choosing furniture and so on. This may not be helpful for families who can't afford this type of room renovation.

I'm not sure what the ideal age range for this book would be. It's a LOT of text and I think my 10 y/o would be bored silly by it. My older kids would probably consider it too babyish, but younger kids would be lost in all the text and exercises. Kids who enjoy journaling and reading self help books are likely to find it a good fit.

I read a temporary digital ARC of this book via Net Galley.