The Early Learning Hub utilized the one-time Birth-to-Five Literacy Fund to host a Home Visitor Book Fair on June 5 and 6 at Linn-Benton Community College.

We invited Jennifer Butler-Brown, a bookseller specializing in diverse books for kids and educators. She brought down a huge inventory of books, curated to help our home visitors find the tools they need to help every child find acceptance, enrichment, and joy in reading.

We reached out to Home Visitor Supervisors for lists of staff members interested in participating. 9 community partners sent over 105 home visitors from across our region to the book fair. While in-person shopping was prioritized, arrangements were made for online browsing, proxy pick-ups, and even direct ordering with the vendor.

Each Home Visitor was given a $300 book voucher. Then the vendor surprised us by offering an additional 20% educator discount, plus free shipping, for those who were unable to pick up their books in person.

The Main Book Room contained 14 tables of books and one bookcase of books, covering a variety of topics for a wide age range, including social-emotional development, divorce, race, immigration, incarcerated parents, indigenous cultures, STEAM, and more.

The Diverse Languages Book room contained six tables of books in Spanish, a table of books in Arabic, one table of books in Chinese, and a table of books in various languages, including American Sign Language, Korean, Vietnamese, Russian, and more.

After the Book Fair, we surveyed participants to gather feedback on their experience.

What did you most enjoy about the book fair?

• The amazing selection of books! I loved the bilingual selection.
• The quality & selection of books, especially the mental health topics!
• The availability of such a huge variety of books and the opportunity to pick which books we thought would best serve our families.
• Seeing all the choices and being able to pick at my own pace.

Additional Feedback and Comments

• This is a priceless gift that was shared with us as visitors.
• The lady checking us out in the English room [Jennifer, bookseller] was amazing. Super helpful and nice.
• Thank you very much for making this available to all of us. I feel very lucky to have had this opportunity to shop and focus on getting materials that I believe will be most helpful for our community.
• Thank you for promoting early literacy!
• I loved the selection of books on difficult topics, like immigration, separation and divorce, grief, big feelings etc.

Download the event report here: Home Visitor Book Fair Report