INDIANAPOLIS — Children up to age 6 can obtain and cherish their own free books as part of the Early Readers Club initiative announced by The Indianapolis Public Library and United Way of Central Indiana. The project will help families build a home library as part of a larger goal of preparing young children for school success.
Funded by UWCI, the Early Readers Club will allow children to select and take home one book each month from any of 11 Indy Library branch locations: Brightwood, Eagle, East Washington, East Thirty-Eighth Street, Flanner House, Fountain Square, Garfield Park, Haughville, Spades Park, West Indianapolis and the InfoZone (located in The Children’s Museum). An attending adult must register participating children at any of the 11 Library locations to receive an Early Readers Club card that can be used to choose their free books. Participation ends when a child turns 6 years old.
In addition, the Library’s Itty Bitty Bookmobile service will register preschoolers in 150 local child care centers as well as home and ministry child care centers to participate in the program. Each month, the Library’s mini SUVs will drop off a book for each child in these targeted centers.
UWCI will provide 180,000 books for giveaways throughout the project, which is modeled after the national Dolly Parton Imagination Library initiative. An estimated 6,000 children are expected to be registered in the first phase, with a goal of eventually serving up to 15,000.
For more information on these and other Library activities for children, visit www.indypl.org.
