Imagine kids reading: book program keeps turning the pages

Carmen Breece, Imagination Library board member, reads a book to Valery Pittman's class at East Side Elementary Wednesday. (T-G Photo by Sadie Fowler) [Order this photo]

Imagination Library board members read to students at East Side Elementary Wednesday in a quest to promote the importance of reading to young children.

This week is Imagination Library Week in Tennessee. Imagination Library, started by entertainer Dolly Parton in 1996, mails students registered in the program new, age appropriate books from birth to age 5 at no cost to the family.

Tera Overcast-Davis, board member, brought the program to Bedford County about six years ago, and said about 1,300 children in the county are registered with Imagination Library.

Any child under age 5 can be registered. "About 2,700 children in Bedford County are eligible," Overcast-Davis said.

Now in its fourth year, Imagination Library Week, held Sept. 13-19, is packed with events aimed at bolstering enrollment and fundraising in the 95 counties of Tennessee that participate in Imagination Library.

"Now that almost 60 percent of all eligible children in Tennessee is registered in this important pre-kindergarten literacy program, I recognize there are still many more families with young children left to reach," said Gov. Phil Bredesen in a press release issued by the Governor's Books from Birth Foundation in Goodlettsville.

Overcast-Davis said she has seen firsthand the difference the program can make in a child. She said Javan Smith, the first child from Bedford County to register with Imagination Library, was recently named a top accelerated reader in his school.

Davis also wished to acknowledge the families of Skylar Ullom and Matthew Woods, both participants of the literacy program, who died this year.

Get involved

The cost to deliver 12 hardback books to one child is $14 annually, To sponsor a child, visit www.governorsfoundation.org/give.php.