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Happy holidays from the Maryland Book Bank! This time of year always brings an opportunity for reflection, and lately I’ve been thinking about an important concept for our MBB team: fostering a literacy ecosystem.   When Kim Crout, our wonderful Program Director, first used that phrase, I wasn’t sure what she meant. A literacy ecosystem? What does that look like?   Before we can define a literacy ecosystem, it’s important to first understand that reading is a complicated skil

One of my favorite parts of working at the Book Bank is getting to see thousands of book covers per day. The books we see range in color, size, texture, and shape, and the illustrations are incredible.   The most classic children’s characters from picture books - Eric Carle’s very hungry caterpillar, Mo Willems’ Elephant and Piggie, and Dr. Seuss’s Cat in the Hat - are colorful, creative, and loveable. They’ve become so beloved because of the way these characters enhance the

As I round out my fifth week working at the MBB, something that has continuously stuck out to me as a core principle of the Book Bank is the idea of books as a fundamental right. This concept is something that Kim, our lovely Program Director, is a huge advocate for:   “Literacy is not a luxury. Books are a human right.  They are the building blocks of equity, empathy, and opportunity. Access to books should never depend on a family’s zip code or income. Every child deserves