Initiative Aims to Help Bellevue Hospital Rebuild Reach Out and Read Program

Reach Out and Read at Bellevue Hospital [1]  is part of a national initiative to make books a routine part of pediatric care, starting at a baby's six-month check-up.  Studies show [2] that being read to early and often creates a strong foundation for later learning and leads to ultimate success in school.  The program at New York City’s Bellevue Hospital serves 11,000 children each year — all of them underprivileged — and encourages reading aloud as a regular, joyful home activity that improves language development, parent child interactions, and school success. 

Bellevue, which was hit hard by flooding during Hurricane Sandy, lost thousands of books during the storm and its aftermath.  Following a November PBS NewsHour report [3] on Reach Out and Read’s national influence that included a postscript on the loss at Bellevue, Carol Chittenden of Eight Cousins [4] in Falmouth, Massachusetts, was moved to launch the initiative “Reach Out to Bellevue” to help the program rebuild.

“Reach Out to Bellevue” gives customers of ABC member bookstores the opportunity to purchase a book during the holiday season and beyond that will be donated to the program. “I believe that people love to make small meaningful donations if they are given a way to do it that’s very direct and very easy,” said Chittenden.  

Bookstores can participate by either making a small “Reach Out to Bellevue” display using this list of needed titles [5]  or adding just a few titles to their existing Giving Tree programs.  “We always have more people who want to subscribe to our Giving Tree than we have names,” Chittenden said.

Chittenden has suggested tagging or bookmarking the titles for Bellevue in an identifying manner to help staff recognize them when they are brought to the store counter, and she noted that stores do not need to stock every book on the list.   Chittenden also mentioned that stores may consider providing a discount on the titles to encourage participation and/or a bounce-back coupon for a future purchase at the store.  She hopes to see “hundreds of books going to Bellevue Hospital.”

Stores that choose to participate in Reach Out to Bellevue can bring books to the New England Children’s Booksellers Advisory Council (NECBA) meeting on March 14 in Portland, Maine, or to one of the New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Association spring meetings, to be collected by the American Booksellers Association.  Books collected by ABA will be taken to Bellevue at no cost to participants.  Stores in other regions that wish to take part should store books until Bellevue opens to the public and can accept shipments.

A lifelong literacy advocate, Chittenden participates in many community literacy programs and gives talks about the influence of reading to young children on language development at a local hospital’s pre-natal classes.  “Everything we can do to help babies, toddlers, and preschoolers develop their language helps everybody!” Chittenden said.  “That’s just one of my missions in life now.”

Two Indiebound “Reach Out to Bellevue” widgets were created by ABA and Kenny Brechner of Devaney Doak & Garrett Booksellers [6] for promotional use on store websites. 

Brechner notes that the widget’s alignment can be adjusted based on a store’s needs.  In the code below, the “left” (in red text) can be changed to either “left,” “center,” or “right” allowing booksellers to control the placement of the widget on individual web pages.

Tower Widget Code (pictured above):
<table width="165" align="left"><tr><td><script type="text/javascript">ibWidth=160;ibHeight=600;ibBookSize=100;ibBGColor="B9CF96";ibBorderColor="000000";ibHeaderColor="BA131A";ibHeaderTextColor="FFFFFF";ibTextColor="000000";ibUseTooltip=true;</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.indiebound.org/widgetsrc.php?ibWidgetType=c137039c2&aid=&sid=1" [7]></script></tr></td></table>

Square Widget Code:
<table width="340" align="left"><tr><td><script type="text/javascript">ibWidth=336;ibHeight=280;ibBookSize=100;ibBGColor="B9CF96";ibBorderColor="000000";ibHeaderColor="BA131A";ibHeaderTextColor="FFFFFF";ibTextColor="000000";ibUseTooltip=true;</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.indiebound.org/widgetsrc.php?ibWidgetType=c137039c2&aid=&sid=1" [7]></script></tr></td></table>