Reading is food for the brain! Having books at home makes a real difference to babies' and children's love of stories and books. It gives them a flying start in learning to talk and read, and extends their language - children's vocabulary at age five is the biggest predictor of how well they do later in life. Inspired by her father's inability to read and write, Dolly started her book-gifting Imagination Library in 1995 for the children within her home county, and it has now spread around the world, including here in south Oxford.

Imagination Libraries are funded by local donations, with subsidised, high-quality children's books provided via the UK branch of Dolly's Imagination Library. The Peeple and Growing Minds Imagination Library started in the Leys in south Oxford in April 2014 with the help of generous local donors - and so far, the total number of books delivered to local families is over 50,000! We offer it to all local families with under fives in the areas we work in around south Oxford: the Leys, Littlemore and Berinsfield. We have some funding in place for this year - but not enough to reach all the children this year and next.

We need to raise more funds to enable us to continue getting these high-quality books into the hands of the next generation of readers. £25 will fund a year's worth of monthly books for one child (including postage). Rod Nicholson will be Bicycling for Books in August 2023 - in the world's oldest cycling event, 1200km from Paris-Brest-Paris - to fundraise for our local Imagination Library, so do support him if you can.

Thank you for donating and being part of our Imagination Library story here in south Oxford.