A Box of Children's Books: A Birthday Gift to Our Future

By Anna Reilly, Book Harvest Board Chair

Heading into our country's 250th anniversary, I find myself impatient. We are capable of delivering so much more than symbols and splashy events: we are capable of making a bold, ambitious commitment to the future of our democracy.

And I know exactly where I want to start.

Imagine if every community, county and state focused on building a thriving ecosystem of literacy by providing an abundance of books for every child from birth – a home library for every family. Helping families across America build home libraries is one of the most consequential investments we can make for our children. And as a bonus, it's fun, it's joyful, and it's filled with abundance — which we could use a little more of these days.

Literacy begins at birth. Every benchmark we've spent billions of dollars chasing — third grade reading, kindergarten readiness, and early phonemic awareness — begins not when a child shows up for school, or even preschool, but on the day that child is born. The answer is simpler than we've made it: equip new parents with a beautiful box of books in the hospital to take home with their baby – the tools to start building their home library.

Why the hospital? Because maternity and NICU nurses are the superheroes of this story. They are the trusted messenger. They understand intuitively that every new parent, regardless of circumstance, wants the best for their child.

That starter home library becomes a force multiplier for everything that follows: a book provided by Reach Out and Read at a wellness check-up, signing up for Dolly Parton's Imagination Library, getting a library card. A lifetime of literacy. An abundance of books in the home amplifies every other investment we make in supporting parents in the education of their child.

I've seen this model work. On a recent visit to Memorial Hospital of South Bend, nurses in the Mother/Baby unit and the NICU told me that Books from Birth—the program expanding throughout our country that puts a box of 10 new board books in the hands of every new parent the day their child is born—has been profound.

And here's the other thing — and this is the elephant that is not just in the room, it's sitting on us: a recent survey of more than 1,000 teachers found that nearly one in three children arriving at school did not know how to hold a book or turn its pages. In fact, many attempted to swipe them instead. Parents feel overwhelmed by digital anxiety, not just their own use, but their children's. Plentiful free books throughout the spaces where families show up — hospitals, doctors' offices, schools, laundromats, community centers — help us stay human in this time of tech acceleration.

Developing a regular shared reading habit is a parent's superpower. But we can't just prescribe it without giving them the tools to do it. An abundance of books in the home, with support along the way, is the evidence-based answer. Reading to a baby nurtures early relational health between parent and child. It creates a nourishing pause — the space for our children to process not at the speed encouraged by screens and gamified programs, but at the speed of being human. The speed of empathy, the speed of imagination, the speed of staying present in the moment long enough to grasp it.

It's time to flood the zone — not with technology, but with books.

What's so beautiful about this is the simplicity. Books are inexpensive. They don't need a data center. They use little energy to produce. We don't need a new bureaucracy or a ten-year task force. We simply need the will to show up for parents on day one with the tools they need.

As America prepares to celebrate its 250th birthday, I keep thinking about all the birthdays that matter just as much: the ones happening every day in delivery rooms across this country. Every one of those is a day one. A chance to begin. I am doing this work because I believe that putting books in the hands of families on that very first day is among the most meaningful, consequential, and enduring investments any of us can make — for children, for families, for the future of this democracy. And I am asking you to join me.

Philanthropists, hospital systems, community foundations, policymakers: the infrastructure exists. The model works. What we need is more people deciding that book abundance for every child born in America is not a nice idea but a national priority.

As Max from Where the Wild Things Are would say: “Let the wild rumpus start!”

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For more than three decades, Anna has invested in education, economic opportunity, and the communities where she has lived. She holds a Master of Public Policy from Duke University, has served on the Board of Visitors for Duke's Sanford School of Public Policy, and has supported institutions from Winston-Salem State University to community-based organizations focused on children and families. Anna currently serves as Board Chair of Book Harvest, a nonprofit expanding a national model of book abundance for children from birth, and has visited partner hospital sites to witness its impact firsthand.