Imagination Library

Books are expensive. Children books more so, considering they tend to have hard covers or board pages. So for 8 pages, including cover, you may fork out 8 dollars. How can you afford to read to your child? Well, the number one way is FREE. Go to your local library. Mine lets me check out a zillion at a time. So Keegan just loads me up on books and I check them out. Then the next week I go back and return the ones he had least interest in and we check out even more. I can renew the ones he likes online. Although, eventually we say good-bye to those to.

But, here is another FREE way to get your hands on children's books that you get to keep - Dolly Parton's Imagination Library. There are a couple of catches. First, it's not available everywhere. It is up to your community to put it in place. Second, your child's eligibility depends on when the program started in your area. For us, it started too late for Keegan to be eligible. But Lochlan is eligible, being younger. And every child born after him will be eligible too. To find out if your child is eligible visit ImaginationLibrary.com.

HOW IT WORKS: Every couple of months your child is mailed a book that covers certain themes. For Lochlan, this first year he will get books that focus on:
Vision - bright, big, colorful
Touch - board pages
Rhyme and rhythm
Simple - easy to use
Minimal text - point and say
Playful sound
Nurture - attachment- lullaby themes

We received our first book in the mail today! So that's really what brought this to mind. Lochlan has his own copy of The Little Engine That Could. Hardcover. With a note from Dolly Parton in the introduction!

I encourage everyone to check out ImaginationLibrary.com today and see if your child can start receiving free books in the mail.