“One of the best gifts we can give our children is the gift of literacy and the gift of imagination,” said Kentucky First Lady Britainy Beshear at the Erlanger branch of the Kenton County Public Library Monday.
Beshear, along with library staff and area families, inaugurated the new children’s section at the Kenton County Public Library’s Erlanger branch on June 17. The event came on the heels of the recent extension of Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library throughout all of Kentucky’s 120 counties. The program provides free books to kids through the mail, and Beshear took the opportunity on Monday to describe the importance of early literacy for kids.
“We are helping them not only through identifying letters [and] numbers,” Beshear said. “Being able to follow a story is really critical to the success of our children.”
Before Beshear gave her statement, however, she read two books to the rapt audience of kids who had come out to the event: Dandelion Magic by Darren Farrell and Tad and Dad by David Ezra Stein.
The kids followed along as Beshear read, acting out the things occurring in Beshear’s narration when prompted–roaring when a sea monster appeared or blowing when a character blew a dandelion into the air.
The new children’s section, said Library Director Dave Schroeder, aimed to make the space more kid-friendly and up-to-date.
The $300,000 renovation saw the library repaint the area and add new surfacing to the floor, which is easier to clean up, Schroeder said. The new kids section also includes updated electronic infrastructure, more toys and activities, a meeting room, new furniture and, of course, new materials for the collection.
“There’s a lot of new materials that we added to the collection to make it fresh and exciting,” Schroeder said. “But we wanted the kids to come in to see something colorful and bright and clean and that would spark their imagination.”
The benefits of reading to children at an early age are well-documented, and library staff used the event to tout Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library, a national program that was originally the brainchild of famous country singer Dolly Parton. The program ships free books to families on a regular basis with the hopes of inculcating a love of reading into kids as soon as possible.
Kenton County Library was actually the last partner county to become part of the Kentucky branch of Parton’s program. A group of volunteers in Covington had attempted to get the program off the ground in the county a few years back, but the program floundered due to lack of funding.
Schroeder said Ludlow Independent Public Schools had signed up for the program in the interim, so the library got all of the county school districts together to bring it to everyone. Funding for the current program is divided between the state, which provides about half, and the public library, which provides about a quarter, with the remainder divided between the school districts.
“In the first three days that Imagination Library came here in Kenton County, 1,700 children signed up,” Beshear said.
“All of these local programs partners came together to make this happen,” JC Morgan, the director of Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library Kentucky and former library director of the Campbell County Public Library told the kids in attendance, “so you can get these books absolutely free.”
Morgan is a firm believer in “laps, not apps,” which means parents should sit and read together with their children so that they can work through the emotional and intellectual challenges of reading together.
Beshear chatted briefly with LINK nky after the event. When asked if there were any other programs or advice she’d like to draw attention to, she said that having meaningful, engaging conversations with children was just as important as reading to them.
“It’s also important that, as a child growing up, that they know that their opinions matter and what they have to say matters,” Beshear said.
As far as advice, it was simple: “Keep reading to your kids.”
Any Kenton County resident can sign up to get free books through the Dolly Parton Imagination Library by visiting the program’s website, or by talking with an associate at any of the county’s library branches.