Baby's Got Mail: Free Books Boost Early Literacy
A simple, scalable program — founded by Dolly Parton — reaches kids before they enter school: You sign up and get a free book in the mail every month until your child turns 5.
"A busybody." That's how Raven Judd describes her 10-month-old daughter Bailey.
"She loves tummy time. She likes to roll over. She'd dive if you let her," says the 27-year-old mother from Washington, D.C.
There is one thing, though, that will get her baby girl to stop what she's doing: when her mother reads her favorite book, the aptly named My Busy Book.
"Her eyes get really, really big," Judd says. "She gets excited and will start hitting on (the book). When I start reading out the numbers and alphabet, I turn it into a little tune, and then she starts laughing," Judd says.
That book — and the others stacked in
