Nebraska Growing Readers provides free books for families to read with their children. Our goal is to help families build home libraries and adopt shared-reading habits that will lay the foundations for future educational success.
The families and children enjoy the books. I have a child that picks one for herself twice a week! That's great to see.
--Gwen Gideon at Educare Skinner in Omaha
Making Books Available to Families
Nebraska Growing Readers currently has distribution sites in 80 of the state's 93 counties. NGR books are distributed through:
- Licensed home- and center-based childcare providers;
- Directly to registered families whose children are incoming kindergartners for fall of 2024;
- Book gardens established as trusted sites in communities, such as churches, libraries, community centers, etc.
- Digital NGR Library.
Recommended Books
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Children who live on a farm or are growing up in a farming community are sure to connect to Corn by Laura Cady. But even Nebraska's city dwellers will recognize those green rows that are an every day part of the state's landscape.
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Teach children to count with Bunny with a B. They will also delight in the repetition of B-word sounds, word play, and the rich illustrations of bunnies doing silly things. Nebraska children will certainly have lots of things to say about the abundance of bunnies they see in springtime.
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Beautiful Birds is full of lovely photos of birds in action. The book provides opportunities to talk about different colors, to learn different types of birds, to think about the things that birds do, and to talk about when and where we find birds.
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Bedtime leads children through the familiar bedtime rituals that are part of healthy development and that include reading as important part of bedtime. The book can be an introduction to telling time, a fun game of "what's next?", or just a nice way to wind down and relax before bed
