This story was originally published by Bridge Michigan, a nonprofit and nonpartisan news organization. To get regular coverage from Bridge Michigan, sign up for a free Bridge Michigan newsletter here.
TRAVERSE CITY — At 5 years old, Rowan Schug is finally tall enough to reach into the mailbox in front of his home. He sifts through the boring stuff addressed to his mom and dad, hoping he’ll find a package addressed to him or his 3-year-old sister Finn. Inside each package is a new book, delivered free every month from birth to age 5.
Rowan recently received the last of his 60 books in the program, titled appropriately, “Look Out, Kindergarten, Here I Come!”
“Having something show up right to your house is awesome,” said father Alan Schug. “They're both very hungry for knowledge.”
Rowan and Finn are among at least 4,200 children receiving free books monthly in northwest Michigan, through grassroots and state-supported efforts that aim to reverse plummeting reading skills.
While early signs are encouraging, the efforts are at risk. Foundation grants have slowed and ongoing state budget talks do not include allocations to continue early literacy efforts in Traverse City and across Michigan.
“We are not going to turn kids away if we possibly can do it,” said Betsy Moore, coordinator for the Dolly Parton Imagination Library Grand Traverse region, which pays for and manages the book program in the area.
“But the loss of state funds would be huge.”
The uncertainty comes as Michigan struggles with early literacy. M-STEP scores released in August show less than 40% of third graders were reading at a proficient level or higher — a record low.
A separate test — the National Assessment of Educational Progress — found that Michigan ranked 44th in the nation in fourth-grade reading, despite an increase in funding and staffing in recent years.
That matters because experts believe early reading skills are critical to academic success, and many business, education and political leaders are sounding the alarm over the state’s lackluster public schools.
Northwest Michigan didn’t wait for schools or politicians to fix the problem. Since the pandemic, community groups and volunteers have coalesced around getting as many books into the hands of as many children as possible.
The programs in northwest Michigan — the Dolly Parton Imagination Library and Power! Book Bags — are available elsewhere. But here, community groups more than tripled the reach of those giveaways: 53% of children up to 5 get a free book in the mail each month from a nonprofit that works with the Dolly Parton program compared to 16% statewide. In addition, Power! Book Bags, which is headquartered here and now has gone statewide, gave away 41,000 books in 2024 in those same counties.
The efforts have different names, but coalesced into a loosely-coordinated grassroots campaign that appears to be one of the largest and most successful in Michigan.
Falling in love with language
While it is too early to measure the impact on reading scores, numerous studies suggest it could help.
“Kids love books,” said Kara Gregory, executive director and founder of Power! Book Bags, which focuses on getting books to low-income children. “We're teaching families to fall in love with language and literacy and learning.”
Gregory started her nonprofit “literally pulling books off my kid's bookshelf” to give away. Nine years later, her organization donates books in 27 Michigan counties and has an annual budget of $800,000.
In northwest Michigan, about 5,000 children received at least one book from the group in 2024, from giveaways at places such as the Salvation Army, Head Start classrooms and food pantries. It’s unclear how many of those children also receive books through the Dolly Parton program.
A former teacher, Gregory recalls being struck by the language gap she’d see when children entered kindergarten.
One study found that children who are read to daily enter kindergarten having heard almost 1.4 million more words than their counterparts.
An estimated 90% of brain development happens by age 5, making the years before a child enters elementary school critical for academic success, said Moore, who manages the region’s Dolly Parton Imagination Library effort.
“Fewer than half the kids in our region are ready for kindergarten, and if they’re not ready for kindergarten, the gap grows,” Moore said. “This early period is so critical — it sets them on a path for success or to struggle.”
The group pays $2.60 per book to give away to participating children, including 3-year-old Sarai Karner, daughter of Traverse City resident Claire Karner.
“The first thing we do when we get it, is to sit down and read it,” Karner said. “Personally, I would be reading with my kids with or without the program. But for people who maybe don’t have as much access to the library, it really levels the playing field.”
That is vital to state efforts to boost early literacy. On average, students from low-income families score lower on standardized reading tests, which experts attribute in part to less exposure to books.
Addressing that book bottleneck has become a communitywide effort in northwest Michigan. The Rotary Club of Traverse City funds a Born to Read program that donates books to families of newborns at Munson Medical Center, including a sign-up form for the Dolly Parton program. Since 2023, about 1,700 new parents a year got those books in a welcome bag when they leave the maternity ward.
Club members also promote the program at community events, urging parents of young children to sign up for free books.
“If the kids aren’t coming into kindergarten ready to learn, they’re so far behind,” said Sharon Workman, chair of the Rotary’s Born to Read committee. “The problem has become more obvious and recognized, and there were disparate efforts to address it. The more we have people working together, the more successful we’re going to be.”
The group relies on volunteers like Heather Graham, a financial controller for a Traverse City company, who spends her lunch hour on Tuesdays and Thursdays reading to toddlers.
“You can't sit back and wait for someone else to fix it,” Graham said. “You have to fix it.”
Daniel Tiesworth, chief academic officer at the Traverse City district, said getting books into the hands of preschool children can “mitigate some of the language gaps” that early elementary teachers often see.
“Once families get access to more books, we (can) help parents become more engaged to build on oral skills,” Tiesworth said.
At Traverse City, the share of third graders considered to be proficient readers has dropped from 60% before the pandemic, to 49% in the spring of 2025.
Most of the children who have benefitted from the free book efforts haven’t reached third grade yet, so it’s too early to tell if the programs will improve literacy.
“I don’t think we’re going to see our proficiency rate double because of this,” Tiesworth said, “but research shows us it is a positive.”
Possible funding cuts
Power! Book Bags last year donated more than 100,000 books statewide, including 41,000 in five counties around Traverse City.
A poster on its office wall lists 120 donors to the effort last year. In August, the same poster listed 19 so far in 2025.
“I’m scared,” founder Gregory said, looking at the poster. “I apply for grants all the time, and we've had more denials in the last two months than we've had in two years.”
The program isn’t in danger of closing, but its reach could be narrowed with less funding. While donations typically increase in December, Gregory acknowledges that contributions are behind last year’s pace. Without an influx of donations, “we’re not going to be able to serve as many kids,” Gregory said.
“It’s so frustrating — we know what kids need to be successful in life, and it’s not that hard to provide. But we can’t because my hands are tied.”
Meanwhile state funding that helps support both programs is up in the air.
There’s been a $4 million carveout for early literacy programs across Michigan in the past two annual state budgets, but the funding currently is not in the House or Senate versions of the new education budget.
Power! Book Bags received $10,000 from the state out of an $800,000 budget. State funding accounted for 22% of the region’s Dolly Parton Imagination Library free book program ($30,000 out of a $132.000 budget)
Losing $30,000 is the equivalent of 961 children not getting free monthly books in northwest Michigan.
Programs that rely on state funding to purchase free books should have their answer in the coming weeks. The state budget deadline is Oct. 1.
Sen. Darrin Camilleri, D-Brownstown Township, told Bridge he is “hopeful we can get (the early literacy funding) secured in the final product.”
Rep. Ann Bollin, R-Brighton, who is chair of the House Appropriations Committee in the House, did not return a request for comment.
Twelve states, including Ohio, fund the monthly free book program through the Dolly Parton Imagination Library for all children.
In Ohio, 70% of children under the age of 6 are signed up for the program.
If Michigan were to offer the same to its children and 70% signed up, it would cost about $14 million a year.
That’s a small price to try to improve literacy, Moore said.
Moore was at a Traverse City school event one evening during the last week of August, where she signed up 20 more families for the free book program.
She’s never had to turn children away because of a funding shortfall, but she worries she won’t be able to keep that promise going forward.
“For $156, Dolly Parton can send books to a child (each month) for five years,” Moore said. “Think of that cost versus the cost of remediating a child” who is struggling to read in school.
This article first appeared on Bridge Michigan and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
