Library of Congress Literacy Award
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BOOK ACCESS PROGRAMS

GROUNDED IN RESEARCH & TEAMWORK

Book Buddies
Book Giveaways
Book Cubbies
Service Clubs
BMAB - Book Buddies Video

Book Buddies

The Book Buddies program, founded in 2006, is an all-volunteer program delivered to under-resourced preschool and kindergarten classrooms. Trained Book Buddies take carefully selected hardcover books to read to the children in the classroom sixteen times in the school year.

Book Buddies also offer ideas that extend the story by involving the children with questions, building new vocabulary, and connecting the story to the children’s lives. The books are gifted to the classroom libraries. Twice a year each child receives a hardcover book to keep at home.

SEE OUR BOOK BUDDIES RECOMMENDED TITLES

Book Cubbies and Family Workshops

Giving books a place in the home

Books in the home are a must! Again and again, research identifies the number of books in the home as the key to academic and personal success (Evans, et al., 2014; Neuman & Moland, 2016). Children need quality books and a place to keep them so they are readily accessible. Based on these needs, we were inspired to design and manufacture small individual bookcases or “Book Cubbies.” Parents and children paint and decorate the drawer (built to hold a writing journal), add wooden letters to spell the child’s name, and personalize the cubby for each child. It then becomes the child’s home library inspiring pride of book ownership and establishing the child’s identity as a reader.

Our interactive Family Workshop is an essential element of our Book Cubby program. We help parents understand the importance of reading aloud to their children, provide ideas about engaging ways to share books with their children, and explain that every parent-child conversation about a book is an opportunity to learn. Children then select new books to take home and keep in their Cubby.

Books Beyond Classrooms

Bring Me A Book seeks and responds to additional ways to provide quality books to children through a variety of nonprofit organizations. Bookcases and books are provided to health clinics, childcare centers, juvenile detention centers,family courthouse centers and others that share and promote our work.

Service Clubs

The Speaker Appreciation program was developed for service clubs as a means of recognizing guest speakers at their regular meetings. Clubs adopt a local under-resourced classroom, from preschool through third grade, to receive the books which the club orders through Bring Me A Book. Club members deliver the books to their adopted classroom.

How it works

After each presentation, the club asks the speaker to sign a bookplate that identifies the organization and explains that the book will be given to children at under-resourced sites such as classrooms, clinic waiting rooms, hospitals, or any public place that children frequent with their parents.

This program offers your Club the opportunity to recognize your weekly speakers and at the same time contribute to the literacy of your community. Using it is as easy as 1-2-3!

Simply order a year’s worth of wonderful children’s books that are shipped directly to you. Each book is of the highest quality, hardbound, and age-appropriate. On the inside cover of each book will be a bookplate printed with your Club’s name.” At the end of the year, or at your convenience during the year, select one or more under-resourced classrooms, health clinics, homeless shelters, etc. in your community and donate your collection. This is a WIN-WIN program!

Why Participate?

The Palo Alto University Rotary Club has incorporated this program for 13 years with great success. Their members are proud to be honoring their speakers in this way and appreciate that the program is:

  • Easy
  • Affordable
  • High quality
  • Fun (memorable book titles) and a
  • Gift to the Community

How to Get Started

How to start you Service Club Book Program

  1. Secure funding from your Club
    • Identify the school/classroom/clinic that will receive the books
    • Ask members for suggestions
    • Contact your regional or local Head Start Director
    • Search online for Title I schools in your area
    • Contact the school’s principal or director to explain the program and request names of teachers in need of classroom books
    • Consider local homeless shelters and health clinics that serve low income families
  2. Order your books online selecting the Speaker Collection
  3. At your meetings, ask your Guest Speakers to sign the bookplate and explain where the book will be donated