MAYFIELD HEIGHTS, Ohio — Dr. Monique Katsuki knows how powerful it can be to put a book in a kid’s hands.
She’s a mother of two – and an obstetrician who helps parents bring babies into a world that’s filled with disparities in health, access and wealth.
“A lot of things we can’t fix. And a lot of things are not an easy fix. And things are so complex,” said Katsuki, an OB hospitalist at the Cleveland Clinic’s Hillcrest Hospital.
“But this,” she said, pointing to a stack of free books from Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library, “is a real, concrete thing that we can do for our families.”
Last month, Ohio launched a new initiative, becoming the first state to let parents sign their newborns up for the Imagination Library right away, as part of their official birth-certificate paperwork. That will give postpartum nurses the chance to help enroll families at a critical time, before they leave the hospital.
Created in Tennessee in 1995, Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library sends free books each month to children from birth to age 5 in communities across the United States and a few other countries. Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library of Ohio launched as a nonprofit in 2019 and went statewide in late 2020 by working with a large group of local partners.
The money for the program comes from the Dollywood Foundation and fundraising by the statewide nonprofit and more than 70 local partners.
Over the last seven years, Ohio families have received nearly 23 million free books in the mail, according to Gov. Mike DeWine’s office. Ohio has more participating families than any other state. But only 70% of eligible households are enrolled.
Meanwhile, only one out of every three children in Ohio is prepared for kindergarten, based on assessments that measure math, language, social and physical development.
“That’s awful, right?” Katsuki said. “Because when you look at kindergarten readiness, it very strongly correlates with likelihood to graduate from high school. Likely to go on to secondary education. Health literacy. And lifetime earning potential.”
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She and other advocates see Imagination Library books as a key tool in the fight to change those statistics. Children enrolled as newborns receive 60 free books in the mail, starting with “The Little Engine that Could,” progressing through board books and picture books, and ending with “Look Out Kindergarten, Here I Come.”
Ohio First Lady Fran DeWine announced the change in the state’s birth-certificate paperwork on Sept. 12. “We want to get books into the home as early as possible in order to have the most impact,” she said in a news release after the annual first lady’s luncheon.
The updated birth certificate paperwork has a section at the end with a description of the program. Parents check a box to participate. They have the option to choose mostly English books or a full line-up of bilingual books, written in English and Spanish.
Families who don’t opt in at the hospital can sign up online any time before a child’s fifth birthday. But the goal is to reach people much sooner, said Joan Spoerl, the director of the Imagination Library program in Cuyahoga County for the nonprofit Literacy Cooperative.
“The first 12 to 24 months are the critical window of opportunity for language development in the brain,” she said.
Spoerl encourages caretakers to spend just 15 minutes a day reading out loud – and drawing children into books by pointing out the pictures and asking questions. Many of the Imagination Library books include prompts and guides for parents and other readers.
“We get to hear back from families every day about how much they appreciate Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library and getting these free, high-quality books in the mail,” Spoerl said. “It’s almost like they have a script. They tell us that these books become their favorite books. How excited their child gets. And how these books meet their developmental needs at different times, how well-chosen they are.”
Katsuki watched her own children, who and 5 and 6 now, go through the Imagination Library program. Her family’s favorite books include “Cinderella – with Dogs!” and “Coat of Many Colors,” based on Dolly Parton’s upbringing and her 1971 country song.
“My son will just have a stack of his books, and he’ll just sit and look through them for an hour,” she said. “I love seeing that, too. And I want that for everybody.”
At Hillcrest, there’s a small library full of free books in the waiting room just outside of the maternity center, along with Imagination Library flyers and bookmarks. The hospital handles hundreds of births each month – nearly 4,300 last year, according to a mural on a wall created by a staff member.
Katsuki and other Imagination Library advocates are spreading the word about the state’s updated paperwork, which is tucked into each family’s welcome folder.
“It just makes it so easy,” she said. “You have your baby. Everybody has to fill out the birth certificate. And now all you have to do is check a box. … It’s the answer to all of our problems for newborn enrollment. We were ecstatic.”
