Imagination Library Frequently Asked Questions
Does it cost anything to receive the books?
Do I have to be low income to participate?
It's so generous for Dolly Parton to provide these books!
Will I get junk mail if I sign my child up?
Does my
child’s book get forwarded if we move?
Why is this
offered only to certain communities?
I have a Franklin address or Middletown address in Liberty Township,
but your online registration accepted my information. Will my child
receive books?
I can't get the online registration system to work. What's wrong?
I signed my child up weeks ago and haven’t received a book. Why?
My book arrived early in the month last month but now it’s mid-month
and it hasn’t come yet. Why?
I
have two children in my home registered and the first one’s book has
come but not the second one. Why?
Can you tell me what books will be sent next month?
What can I do other than just read to my child with the books?
Why is reading to my baby important?
How many children are in Middletown’s Imagination Library?
What is Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library?
It is an international early childhood literacy program operating in
1,600 communities across the U.S., Canada, Great Britain and
Australia. It provides one free, expert-selected, age-appropriate book
every month mailed directly to the home of any child in those
communities from birth up until their fifth birthday to help prepare
them for kindergarten. Dolly Parton, inspired by her own father’s
lifelong inability to read, created the program for children in her
native Sevier County, Tennessee, in 1995. By 1999, word of its success
had spread and other cities asked to participate, so her Dollywood
Foundation began allowing other communities to start using its model.
Today, it sends out books to nearly 750,000 children every month and
has distributed over 75 million books since inception. The first book
every child receives is “The Little Engine That Could” and the last
book is “Look Out Kindergarten, Here I Come” on his or her fifth
birthday. For the rest of the child’s enrollment, the book each month
is chosen by birth year, so all children born in 2013 receive Book A,
all children born in 2012 receive Book B, and so on.
Does it cost
anything to receive the books?
No. The program is offered absolutely free to all parents in a
participating community. These books are a gift to your child.
Do I have to be
low income to participate?
No. The program is offered to all children in a participating
community without consideration of income. The goal is to allow all
children to enter kindergarten with the shared experience of the same
60 books as an equalizing factor regardless of income or neighborhood
or family situation. This not only is something recognized by early
childhood education experts as important for children to experience,
but it was also a requirement placed on the program by its founder in
response to her own memories of the stigma of being singled out for
special programs as a child due to her family’s poverty.
It’s so generous for Dolly Parton to provide these books!
Actually, while her foundation covers the administrative costs for the
program (convening the selection committee to choose the books,
maintaining the database of participating children, negotiating
discounted book rates with the publisher, coordinating the monthly
mailing, etc.), she does not pay for the actual books sent to
local children. That falls to local sponsors, who provide the cost of
book purchases and postage. In our community, our primary sponsor is
the Middletown Community Foundation. Other major sponsors include
Women Enriching Lives, United Way of Greater Cincinnati – Middletown
Area, Kiwanis Club of Middletown, Middletown Rotary Foundation, Arthur
Harvey Foundation, Barnitz Fund of JP Morgan Chase, the Morgan Family
Fund, Atrium Medical Center and individual donors. You may
make a tax-deductible donation
here
to support the program in the Middletown area, which costs about $24
per year to send 12 books to a local child.
Will I get junk
mail if I sign my child up?
No. Imagination Library policies prohibit us from using your
information for any purpose that is not directly related to the
Imagination Library. You may receive invitations to an Imagination
Library event we host or a similar offering in the community that we
feel parents would be interested in attending, and we might send you a
survey (which we hope you will return to us so we know how we’re
doing!) or newsletter, but you will not receive “junk mail.”
Does my
child’s book get forwarded if we move?
No. As the books are sent bulk mail, they are not forwarded. That is
why it is very important for you to contact us immediately with your
new address so we may update the mailing system (call 513-424-7369).
However, undeliverable books are returned to the Middletown Community
Foundation. If a book is returned to us, we try to contact you at the
phone number and/or e-mail you provided with your registration to
alert you so that you may come pick it up and to ask for an updated
address. If we are unable to contact you or you do not pick up your
child's book, we will donate it to a charity in the Middletown area so
that other children may enjoy it.
Why is this
offered only to certain communities?
Since the program requires that local sponsors pay for the cost of
book purchase and postage, each community must have a local champion
to cover those expenses. Locally, the Middletown Community Foundation
and its partners make the program available to residents within the
service area of the Middletown Community Foundation: the Middletown,
Monroe, Madison, Edgewood, and Franklin school district boundaries.
Middletown was the first community in which we offered the program,
starting in January 2009. We added Monroe, Madison, and Edgewood in
April 2011 and Franklin in June 2014.
I have a Franklin address or Middletown address in Liberty Township,
but your online registration accepted my information. Will my child
receive books?
No. Unfortunately, our local zip codes do not correspond to standard
geographic or political boundaries, and the Imagination Library online
registration system is zip-code based. Therefore, because a small
number of the Franklin School District residents have Springboro zip
codes, we have to include the Springboro zip code in the system to
allow them to register. Likewise, because the Middletown 45044 zip
code stretches down into Liberty Township, the online system will
accept those addresses. However, before they are approved and added to
our mailing list, we review each address to determine where the child
resides. If you live outside of the Middletown, Monroe, Madison,
Edgewood, or Franklin school district boundaries, we reject your
child’s registration.
If you do reside in one of those school districts and have a child who
has yet to reach his or her fifth birthday, you may complete the
online registration form.
I
can't get the
online registration system to work. What's wrong?
The system closes for a day or two around the first of each month so
that the database may be exported for the next month's book mailing
process. Please try again in a few days.
I signed my child up weeks ago and haven’t received a book. Why?
The books are ordered one month in advance, so it is possible that
your child is not in the system yet. For example, let's say the July
book order is placed on June 3. If you registered your child on June
1, you would have made that list and your book would have arrived in
July, about four or five weeks later. However, if you registered your
child on June 11, you would have missed the July order’s cut-off date
and your child would be included in the August order. If the August
book arrives on August 20, that’s a 10-week delay between when you
registered and when the first book came. Also, there may be a delay in
receipt of your registration form. If you mail your form directly to
the Middletown Community Foundation or use the
online registration
process,
we receive it immediately. If another agency collects the form for you
and forwards it to us, there may be a slight delay in our receiving it
to get your child entered into the system.
My book arrived early in the month last month but now it’s mid-month
and it hasn’t come yet. Why?
The program ships 750,000 books every month, so the time they arrive
varies greatly depending on when the books arrive at their Tennessee
shipping location, how long it takes to address them, and then the
order in which they are sent to the post office for mailing. Sometimes
they can arrive the first week of the month and sometimes it might be
as late as the third or fourth week of the month.
I have two
children in my home registered and the first one’s book has come but
not the second one. Why?
Again, because the program ships 750,000 books every month – an
endeavor that takes a considerable length of time to sort, label,
address, and mail each one – your first child’s book may have been
processed in the first books for that month and the second child’s
book processed in the last books for the month, so they could arrive
as many as two or three weeks apart.
Can you tell me what books will be sent
next month?
No. Although the Dollywood Foundation plans which book will be sent
each month of the year, sometimes shipping or printing delays cause a
book that was planned for Month A to have to be sent out in Month B
instead. For that reason, they do not release a list of books by month
in advance.
What
can I do other than just read to my child with the books?
That’s a wonderful question! Several of the titles have activity
sheets available
here
that you may use to engage your child with fun things to do with the
books. Even without an activity sheet, some things you can do include
talking about the illustrations in the book, making up songs about the
story, asking your child questions about the pictures or about the
story, or asking your child to “read” the book to you by letting him
or her make up a story to go along with the pictures. Most of the
books also have United Way Born Learning reading tips printed in the
inside folds. You can do a lot more than just "reading" when you’re
reading!
Why is reading
to my baby important?
Research has shown that the first five years – and especially the
first three years – of life are among the most important for proper
brain development. This is the time when their brains are growing
faster than they will for the rest of their lives, so they need proper
stimulation to encourage proper growth. Even though you may think a
three month old or six month old might not be getting much out of
reading, studies have shown that a 3-year-old’s vocabulary is a direct
result of the number of words to which he or she has been exposed
during those first three years of life, and the level of a child’s
vocabulary at age 3 also correlates to his or her reading level in the
third grade. In simpler terms, the amount of time you spend with your
child exposing them to language in the first three years is believed
to have a direct result on how well they will perform in elementary
school several years later! A report on the impact of the program on
local families is available
here.