Holiday Book Drive 2021

The Literacy Council’s Annual Holiday Book Drive begins Monday, November 15, 2021. The Literacy Council of Frederick County is  partnering with Curious Iguana for our Annual Holiday Book Drive to provide new books for elementary school aged children (PreK through 5th grade). Last year, over 3,000 books were donated!

While the Literacy Council serves adult literacy needs, providing appealing, age-appropriate books to children fosters literacy at a young age and helps to break the cycle of low literacy in families. The books will be given to parents of children in elementary school who are participating in the Literacy Council’s tutoring, parent literacy, workplace, or class instruction programs. The Literacy Council works directly with the Judy Center and Butterfly Ridge, Hillcrest, Lincoln, and Waverley Elementary Schools to provide tutoring at the schools for parents whose children attend these schools, and many of our other students also have young children with whom to share the books.

Suggestions for younger grades include: board books, picture books (fiction and nonfiction), early chapter books; and for older grades: mid-grade chapter books, paperback series, graphic novels, and STEM titles.

To participate in the Holiday Book Drive, you may purchase and donate books between November 15 and December 13 at Curious Iguana (www.curiousiguana.com) in downtown Frederick (12 N. Market St.) – please designate your purchase to the Literacy Council’s Holiday Book Drive and Curious Iguana will collect them in a bin at their store.  You can also shop online through their Bookshop link and consult their collection of recommended children’s titles, or search for any title on Bookshop. Further instructions are available here: https://bookshop.org/lists/literacy-council-holiday-book-drive.

Books can be delivered to your home or directly to the Literacy Council (mailing address:  Literacy Council of Frederick County, 110 E. Patrick Street, Frederick, MD 21701).  Even though you are shopping online, you will still be supporting a local business.

Or you may simply purchase an unwrapped book and drop it off at the Literacy Council’s office at 110 E. Patrick Street no later than December 13.  There will be a bin for the books in the outer lobby. The lobby is open M-F from 9:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.  Curbside dropoff can be arranged by appointment with requests sent to info@frederickliteracy.org

Donors often like to share a childhood favorite or just encourage the habit of reading in a child. We request no religious holiday themed books so that we are not limited in distributing them.

You can also help by downloading and sharing this 2021 Holiday Book Drive flyer!

The Holiday Book Drive, now in its 15th year, has provided books for multiple local agencies including Centro Hispano, Head Start, YMCA, Toys for Tots, Advocates for Homeless Families, Children of Incarcerated Parents (COIP), Blessings in a Backpack, Spanish Speaking Community of Maryland and FCPS.