Events and Storytimes That Build Home Libraries

It’s been a particularly busy month for events at Book Harvest!

From mid-February to mid-March, we hosted eight weekly storytimes (including storytimes for babies, bilingual storytimes, and sensory storytimes) in addition to three special storytimes: “I Heart Books” for Valentine’s Day, our annual Black History Month Celebration, and even a space-themed storytime with the North Carolina Museum of History. 

Storytime at our annual Black History Month and Black Children's Book Week Celebration.

In typical Book Harvest fashion, each event had its own theme, community partners, treats, activities, and of course, new books to take home and keep forever. 

The implementation of special and weekly storytimes at Book Harvest reflects the creative leadership of our Events Manager, Bria Davenport. After Bria joined the team in 2022, we went from hosting 2 events a year – the annual Dream Big Book Drive and Summer Block Party – to hosting 3-5 events every month… at minimum, clearly.

Events and storytimes offer a special opportunity to connect with our community, bring new families into the space, and infuse reading with a sense of joy and celebration. But most importantly, Book Harvest storytimes don’t end on the last page; they extend into the home. Every attending family and child gets to keep a copy of the featured story to read again and again, building their home libraries with meaningful and memorable titles.

Throughout these three special events alone – not including regular storytimes and Family Space visits – families harvested 895 books. That’s a lot of home libraries!

“The past month was filled with lots of love and lots of people getting books,” Bria reflected. “We have tripled our event lineup in the last 3 years, bringing in hundreds of families into the Family Space with fun, free, and quality programming! Grateful that we can offer these events for the community at no cost to parents.”

Thank you to Bria and our incredible Family and Community Engagement team for putting on these incredible events again and again. Check out https://www.bookharvest.org/events to register for upcoming storytimes – we’ll see you at the next one!