Lea esta historia en español aquí.
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For the ninth year, the Longmont Public Library will be participating in the One Book Colorado program through which 4-year-olds across the state can receive a free book.
Tuesday through Oct. 25, the library, with the support of local partners and St. Vrain Valley School District, will distribute books to children, according to Claire Studholme, children’s and teens’ librarian manager.
“The idea (is) to get a free quality reader book in the hand of every 4-year-old in the state of Colorado … They have done a wonderful job representing Spanish and English. They choose a book that is available in monolingual English and monolingual Spanish,” she said, adding that about half of the books that will be given away locally will be in either language.
Studholme, who has participated and led this effort for the past six years, said the library will receive about 1,000 books as part of this program, an initiative funded and organized by the state library.
“Usually, it’s about a two-week-long giveaway timeline. In the past sometimes we’ve done a storytime event around it or one year we even got the author (to come to) our library to visit, but this year looks different. We are hoping to get the books out even more,” she said.
The library will be doing more extensive outreach efforts, including handing out books through at the library’s curbside pickup and in the children’s area, at SVVSD’s Timberline K-8 meal distributions, the Longmont Youth Center and the Wild Plum Center, according to Studholme.
“Because we are limited in what we can do in person at the library (because of COVID), we are hoping we can get out into the community and get the books out into the community a little bit more,” she said.
Every year, librarians, library educators and professionals get to vote on one of three titles chosen by the state library to be handed out during the giveaway, which is part of the excitement along with other activities organized around the event, said Valerie Taylor Pierce, bilingual Children's and Teens' Services librarian.
The title for this year’s program has been chosen but had not been announced as of the writing of this story.
“It’s really fun … I like the theme of this one. It’s a very positive theme and it’s based on a very old story but kind of with a different, more modern twist to it,” she said, adding that having a Spanish-language version of the book is an important piece, which also helps enhance access for bilingual families.
“The bilingual portion of it is really exciting to me because that means that, a good portion of our population are Hispanic and this is a really positive way of reaching out and encouraging our bilingual parents or Spanish-speaking parents to read to their kids in their native language as well as in English,” Taylor Pierce said.
The idea for this program stems from research showing that “4-year-olds who have access to books and adults who read to them will be more likely to be ready to read when they start kindergarten,” according to the One Book Colorado website. The initiative aims to close the vocabulary gap for young children in low-economic income families and foster a “culture of reading” across the state.
The book giveaway is one among many local initiatives the library has carried out throughout the summer and into the fall to ensure books are made available to families during the pandemic, Studholme said.
“We’ve actually been able to give out more books than ever before so this is a continuation of our giving out free books,” she said.
For more information on the giveaway, call the Children and Teens Desk at the library at 303-651-8477 or visit the library’s website. For additional information on the program and pickup locations across the state, click here.
