Join 1000 Books Before School and make your home a reading home!

Enjoying books together is the best way to help your child develop a love of reading. Reading daily encourages a love of language and story, and helps develop vital skills that will set them up for success at school and beyond. 

All children aged up to five years are invited to sign up. It's free, and any book, anywhere counts – at home, Storytime, playgroup, creche or kinder. You can even read the same book over and over again!

We’ll help you get started, support you along the way, and make it a whole lot of fun!

It’s easier than you think

Reading 1000 books before school is easier than it sounds, considering most picture books take around five minutes to read.

• 3 picture books a day (15 minutes)
  1000 books in less than a year
• 1 picture book a day (5 minutes)
  1000 books in less than 3 years
• 1 picture book each weekday (5 minutes)
  1000 books in less than 4 years

So let's get started!

1. Register your child using the link below (or visit your local library).
2. Download the ‘1-100 Reading Record sheet’.
3. Colour in or place a sticker for each book you read together.
4. When you’ve read 100 books, visit the library to collect a reading record booklet, along with a special library bag and merit patch. (If you can't make it into the library to collect your booklet, please get in touch and we'll post you one).
5. For each 100-book milestone, visit the library to collect a merit patch for your bag and stickers for your reading record.
6. At 500 books, visit the library to collect a bag of goodies to celebrate being halfway there.
7. At 1000 books, it's time to celebrate! Visit the library for a graduation certificate, a photo in our selfie frame and a free picture book.

It’s never too early to start!

While newborn babies may not understand the words you’re saying when you read to them, reading aloud gives information about the world around them and helps build communication skills. Each time you read, your child hears your voice change as you convey emotion, tone and express sounds. They watch you point at the pictures and turn the pages. Then they copy you, mimicking the sounds you make, and they begin to recognise the pictures on the page as they turn. They’re boosting their language, social, emotional and motor skills all while having fun!

And all this takes just 5-10 minutes a day.

We’ll support you along the way

As you and your child grow to love reading together, you’ll want more books. Visit your local library for access to thousands of books , or jump online and see what’s available digitally.

Story Box Library features Australian stories read aloud by Australian storytellers.

Access talking picture books through Tumble Book Library.

Browse BorrowBox, Libby or uLibrary for thousands of eBooks, eAudiobooks and eMagazines.

And don’t forget, Storytimes and StoryWalks count too!

See more online offerings in our eLibrary.

The Southern Boobook Owl

Our mascot for 1000 Books Before School is the Southern Boobook Owl. Boobook owls are the smallest and most abundant of all Australian owls and are commonly found in central Victoria. We have chosen this beautiful little owl as our mascot because of its distinctive call of ‘boo-book’.

Download the info sheet to read more.