Baby Book Bag

A free gift bag for new parents that promotes literacy and helps strengthen the parent/baby bond through reading. Contains reading tips from the Quebec City Reading Council, a free one-year membership to the Library of the Literary and Historical Society at Morrin Centre, and a baby book donated by La Maison Anglaise et Internationale bookstore.

Did you know that little ones who equate books with happy feelings are more likely to enjoy a love of reading and learning as they grow? There are so many reasons to read, sing and recount nursery rhymes to baby right from the start

• To help strengthen the parent-child bond;
• To help build a child’s memory, listening skills and vocabulary;
• To introduce baby to numbers, letters, colours and the world around them;
• To teach little ones how to communicate.

These multiple benefits are the reasons for the Baby Book Bag program.  Scroll down the page to see a list of the partners in this program and a bit of its history.

What is in a Baby Book Bag?

Each FREE Baby Book Bag contains practical, hands-on literacy tools and information to encourage a love of reading, starting in the cradle:

• A sturdy, colourful book designed especially for babies generously donated by La Maison Anglaise;
• A free one-year family membership to the fabulous Morrin Centre library;
• A helpful brochure called “Early Learning at Home: Tips for new parents” from the QCRC;
• A booklet called, “Why Play?” underlining the vital role of playtime;
• A list of local resources called, “Places to Grow your Little One’s Love of Reading and Motor skills”;
• “Baby’s Communication Checklist”from the Hearing Foundation of Canada;
• A tip sheet on signing with baby;
• A bilingual edition of VEQ’s “Tell Me a Story” book;
• A list of reasons why speech pathologists recommend singing nursery rhymes to baby, and the address for this web page to download the audio clips of a few songs and rhymes (right below).

Nursery rhymes (MP3 clips: listen online or download)

Thanks to Kristy Findlay and Geneviève Fily-Paré, speech-language pathologists at the Centre mosaïque de Québec, and teacher Greg Domonkos for taping these lovely tracks at Quebec High School’s Blue & Gold Recording Studio.

How to get your Baby Book Bag

The caring nurses from the Early Childhood Team of Jeffery Hale Community Services will usually deliver a bag to English-speaking households following a new arrival to the family. In the words of a Book Bag recipient, “I was very emotional after baby’s birth and the Baby Book Bag delivery felt like a warm hug from the community just when I needed it most!”

If you choose to receive post-natal care from a Francophone health service provider or midwife, we invite you to simply ask our coordinator Jessica for your Baby Book Bag: jprice@jhpartners.net

History of the program

A true community initiative since 2005, this program exists thanks to a partnership between the following organizations:

• Jeffery Hale Community Partners;
• Jeffery Hale Community Services;
• Quebec City Reading Council (QCRC);
• Morrin Centre;
• La Maison Anglaise;
• Voice of English-speaking Quebec (VEQ), who joined the collaboration in 2019.

In 2019, the Baby Book Bag program underwent a total revamp thanks to a grant from the IRC-CN, a local organization that aims to prevent school drop-out by improve students’ literacy skills from reading awakening to toddlers. As coordinators of the book bag program, Jeffery Hale Community Partners used this grant money to evaluate the bag’s contents in terms of overall effectiveness in literacy promotion, both now and for future generations.

Over the past nine years, nearly 700 local English-speaking families have received a Baby Book Bag. Most of these bags were hand-delivered by a perinatal nurse from Jeffery Hale Community Services during a routine visit after a newborn’s arrival home from a birthing centre.

For more information

For more information or inquiries about the Baby Book Bag program, please call 418 684-5333, ext. 11835, or use our contact form.