Keep Books®

Keep Books are an affordable option to build take-home book programs for children from pre‑K to second grade that are meaningful and purposeful.

Children will enjoy reading these grade-appropriate books in class and taking them home to re-read. Sending Keep Books home provides extra reading, helps children see themselves as successful readers, and builds a bridge between a child’s most important worlds—school and home.

Our books have the text features students need as they develop as readers. Many are leveled and ideal for use in guided reading or independent classroom reading.

When children take Keep Books home they have increased access to quality texts and school-to-home connections deepen.

Join us in making an impact

Making a donation to Keep Books, no matter how small, allows us to support schools and engage in meaningful community partnerships.

Read about a partnership, aimed at increasing at home book access, that Jamie Lipp, Mary Fried Endowed clinical assistant professor and lead of Literacy Collaborative and Reading Recovery, established with the Columbus Division of Police.

Thanks to significant donor support to Keep Books, we were able to provide over 17,000 of our books that officers delivered to Columbus City Schools through the Starfish Assignment's Books and Badges program.

Effective

Keep Books are effective because they:

  • Provide a great deal of easy reading material so children get lots of practice;
  • Provide opportunities for children to notice how words “work” and learn phonics skills;
  • Include many high-frequency words that children read again and again, thus building word knowledge;
  • Make it possible for children to read on their own rather than always depending on adults;
  • Motivate children to write;
  • Build a library of books at home that children can access any time;
  • Help children learn to store, care for, and retrieve books; and,
  • Help children build confidence in themselves as readers.

Samples

Fill out the request form and we'll be happy to send you a small sampling of Keep Books for you to see just how they can benefit your students in class, and how you can use them to build bridges between school and home.