By: Patricia Briese

With the collaboration of the City of Menlo Park Library and the  Raising A Reader Program, the families at the Belle Haven Child Development Center will receive resources that will help encourage families to develop, practice and maintain a habit of sharing books with their children. Menlo Park Library visits the Center weekly for storytelling to help build imagination in children as well as promote both language development and early literacy skills. To continue motivation and bring in the excitement of books, the Raising A Reader Program supplies the Center with book bags for each child to be taken home weekly. Tips of how to read to a child are also provided for families by the Raising A Reader program. In 2015, this program has served over 125,000 children from a diverse range of backgrounds and geographic locations across the country. This is especially important for families with limited access to books and who do not frequently visit programs offered by the neighborhood libraries. The Raising A Reader Program and the neighborhood libraries work together to help parents develop a love of reading with their children that will be shared and passed on to many future generations. The County of San Mateo Library’s book mobile will soon be visiting the Belle Haven community so the families within the Belle Haven community can also enjoy the opportunity of book sharing. For more information, please visit the Menlo Park library webpage.