2021 NICU Book Project Donation Totals

2021 NICU Book Project Donations - can you believe it's been seven years since we started this project!

I started collecting books in 2014 for the NICU where my daughter works to honor the lives of my own twins and also of two grandchildren who did not survive pregnancy. As a reading teacher, I see that children who are read to have better attention spans and do better in school. It took me a year to gather 150 books sorted into packets of 5 books each. I delivered them in September of 2015. I had only planned on making this one donation, but the books were so appreciated by the parents that I kept on gathering books.

Other people started donating books so we could try to send every NICU baby home with a packet of books. Parents read these books to their babies during their often lengthy stays, helping their baby's brains and creating bonding moments full of love. 

Each packet has a half sheet handout explaining why it is important to read to your baby. I put at least one board book in each packet, and we also create packets for families whose first language is Spanish.

We started 2021 with plenty of books from all those who were worried that we would run out because of the pandemic, and just now we are getting low on books again. 

We collected 1,036 books this year from over 40 donors. We benefited from an Usborne Book Drive that gave us over 100 books. I appreciate each and every book that is donated. Reading to babies is so important for brain development, and I love that all these babies benefit from this project. 

Read to a child today even if that child is you. 

If you'd like to contribute to our project use the link below. If you are clearing book shelves, I am happy to take gently used books for this project. 

Link to our NICU book registry to donate books to babies in the newborn intensive care unit so their parents can read to them while they grow. You can also donate gently used books to our project by sending them to me or to Angie. Email me for a mailing address. We can use both English and Spanish books. If you have a graduate of the NICU, or if you have a baby whose life you would like to honor by donating books to this project, let me know, and I can make a book plate with their name for the books you donate.

The Broken Girls by Simone St. James

The Broken Girls by Simone St. James was published in 2018. The author had a huge goal with this one: combine a ghost story, two murder mysteries, two time periods, a Holocaust story, and a romance in one book. I was pleasantly surprised at how well she wove everything together. 

I love historical fiction, and St. James added the Holocaust connection and kept it real even though this is a ghost story. As a mystery, St. James did an excellent job of setting up suspense that kept me listening. I listened to the audio version of this book, and it was well narrated. I love a good ghost story, and this one was just scary enough. 

This story fluctuates between present day and 1950. The main character, Fiona, had an older sister who was murdered and her body was found on the grounds of an abandoned boarding house. When the boarding house is sold and the plan is to refurbish and reopen it, Fiona finds it brings her grief right back to the surface. 

Fiona is a reporter, and tries to find out more about the boarding house, the person who plans on restoring it, and the holes in the narrative of her sister's murder. Her search leads her to another story from 60 years ago, and the truth may put her own life in jeopardy.

 

Read to a child today even if that child is you. 

Link to our NICU book registry to donate books to babies in the newborn intensive care unit so their parents can read to them while they grow. You can also donate gently used books to our project by sending them to me or to Angie. Email me for a mailing address. We can use both English and Spanish books. If you have a graduate of the NICU, or if you have a baby whose life you would like to honor by donating books to this project, let me know, and I can make a book plate with their name for the books you donate.