Merry the Christmas Fairy, the Marshall County Public Library’s new early childhood literacy spokesperson, stopped by all three branches of the library and several local schools to share books and holiday spirit. Merry’s goal is to encourage children and parents to make reading a part of their holiday.
“Studies show that early literacy is directly linked to later academic and career success,” says Tammy Blackwell, Branch Manager at the library’s @Calvert City branch and spokesperson for Merry the Christmas Fairy. “The amount of time you spend reading to children, how much you encourage them to read independently, and even the number of books in the home impacts their performance in school and on tests further down the road. Christmas is a great time to start thinking about how families approach reading in the home. Books make great gifts, and many people find themselves spending more time away from work and with their family, which gives more opportunities to read and share favorite stories.”
Merry is a fairy godmother who has been assigned to guide and guard all the children in the world as Santa Claus’s librarian. She believes that by encouraging children to ask Santa for books and read over the holiday break they can make the world a more magical place.
