My First Bookshelf

For many of us, it is hard to imagine a household without books.

Yet many children in our community are growing up with bare bookshelves at home. Calgary Public Library provides quality early learning resources for free, but many families still face barriers to access — like transportation, digital access at home or English as a second language. The global pandemic has made access even more challenging.

My First Bookshelf is a new Calgary Public Library Program in partnership with Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library. It will deliver new books to children every month from birth to age five. These books are theirs to keep forever — for many children, this will be the first book they have ever owned.

Do you remember your first book? Endlessly re-reading it at bedtime or with a flashlight underneath the covers? You can provide this joy to a child in your community.