“Goodnight, Moon,”
Not ​“Goodnight, TV”

Adriana, who’s recently traded in TV time for reading time with her dad, now has seven new books to choose from at bedtime.

That’s thanks to the Box of Books Project. Adriana (pictured with her dad, Matt Lipowski) is one of 1,600 lucky pre-schoolers at dozens of New Haven daycare programs who recently received a colorful box of books through the project.

Lipowski, a student at Gateway Community College, picked up a box of seven books when he came to fetch Adriana, who’s 4, from the college’s Early Learning Center last week. The box included quality children’s books, including classics like ​“Goodnight, Moon,” as well as some bilingual books.

Lipowski described how his quality time with Adriana has changed after he was encouraged to reduce his daughter’s TV intake. ​“She takes a bath and then she reads a couple books and then she goes to sleep. No TV. Since the little orientation they had, we try to cut down on the amount of TV she watches.”

He added that Adriana still likes to watch Sunday football with him.

Almost 13,000 new books were handed out to pre-schoolers in New Haven to promote early literacy. Sandra Malmquist, the director of the Connecticut Children’s Museum on Wall Street, wrote a grant for the project, and received $40,000 of federal stimulus money through the state.

“A good use of that money,” opined Lipowski.

The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven contributed $13,000.

Malmquist bubbled with enthusiasm at the scope of the project. ​“Every child enrolled in New Haven Public Schools Head Start and Early Head Start programs will receive a beautiful box, donated by IKEA New Haven, filled with seven books,” she wrote in a news release. ​“In addition, children enrolled in some School Readiness classrooms, licensed family childcare homes and community-based centers will also receive Boxes of Books.”

Early Learning Center Director Marge Weiner (pictured with the center’s male involvement staffer, Josh Berrios) said it’s never too early to start communicating with your child. ​“You start reading to your child when they’re in utero. You start reading to your child, singing to your child. That one-to-one conversing is very, very important and really is going to stimulate language.”

She added that in addition to reading books, other kinds of parent-child communication are good, too. ​“Talk to them in the car, make a grocery list together, talk about the different signage in grocery stores, traffic signs, in the daily things you do. Cook together, read a recipe. All of that is very important.”

Weiner said she was proud of the extensive lending library that lines the walls of the hallways in the center, at kid level. All of the half-dozen parents interviewed at the center said they already read to their children, but more books are always a plus.

Licella Arboleda (pictured) is in the joint-degree program at the college, working toward a nursing degree at Southern Connecticut State University after she earns her associate’s degree at Gateway. She said her daughter Zoe has been read to her whole life. ​“It’s actually helped with her attention span,” Arboleda said, ​“because she can sit through about two books per night of reading, so it’s really exciting. And she can write her name, so she’s on the right track, and I believe reading has a lot to do with it.”

Another gift in the box was a red t‑shirt (modeled by Nevaeh McDaniel, age 4), printed with the words, ​“I love it when you read to me,” in English, Spanish, Arabic and Chinese, which are the four most common languages spoken in New Haven public pre-schools. K & H Graphics donated time and materials for the project.