Happy National Reading Month!

Do you know how much libraries care about your children? So much. Our library strives to provide literacy resources and events so your kids can grow cognitively strong from birth to adulthood. And March, which is National Reading Month, is the perfect time to celebrate that.

The most recent way ICPL has invested in your children is by buying digital children’s books in the “multi-access concurrent user” licensing model. This means that your children don’t have to wait in line to check out these Libby books. Your kid and all their friends can read the Dog Man books together, or the Baby-Sitters Little Sister graphic novels, or the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books. You’re never too young to join a book club.

To explore these titles, visit our National Reading Month list on Libby.

Our history of investing in youth literacy in Eastern Iowa has even deeper roots. Next year, we will celebrate the 10-year anniversary of our “1,000 Books Before Kindergarten” program.

“Babies need to hear 17,000 words per day in order to be ready for kindergarten,” says ICPL Children’s Coordinator Angela Pilkington. Our website suggests reading one book each day for three years to reach that 1,000-book goal. 

Daily bedtime reading rituals make achieving this a breeze. My own child demanded multiple books before being ready for sleep, and one of his first books came from Hills Bank.

ICPL’s partnership with Hills Bank on the Begin with Books program is nearing its 35^th year, having been founded on Valentines Day in 1991. For every baby born in Iowa City hospitals, this program provides a free board book as well as a gift certificate for starting a Penny Savers account at Hills Bank.

“Introducing new parents to the importance of literacy from Day 1 is really critical,” says ICPL Development Director Katie Roche. “Talking to your child supports language acquisition. Giving them crayons to draw helps them associate shapes with signs and words. The Begin with Books box gives parents a map for how they can use these tools to support their child’s literacy development.”

And for as much as my family has broken the “limit screentime” rule, my child is a stellar reader. Children are so smart on their own. I blinked, and I missed the moment my child went from needing me to find books for him on Libby, to him finding books on his own. Nine years after getting his book from Hills, he is an independent reader with fervent curiosity.

His latest bedtime ritual? Falling asleep to one of our Read-Along books. The library spends a concerted effort on building our Read-Along collections on our shelves and on Libby.

And while his cognitive growth is a priority for us as his parents, the best part of all this is something bigger. I’m never happier than when we share these stories together. His joy is my joy, a priceless impact. Imagination gives us life.