You could think of Abby Cooper as the Dolly Parton of Minnesota.
Although Parton is best known for her country hits, she has spent the last few decades working in the field of literacy. Inspired by her late father, who could not read, Parton’s Imagination Library gives away millions of books every month to kids in 21 states.
Cooper’s program, A Book of My Own, isn’t as big, at least not yet. The St. Louis Park-based children’s book writer and former librarian began the nonprofit last year, almost by accident. But she’s already mailed about 6,000 free books to 500 families in more than 200 Minnesota towns and cities. Mostly, she ships to homes, but she also has sent books to children in shelters for the unhoused as well as crisis nurseries.
A Book of My Own began with Cooper’s realization that she had way too many books and that there might be others who needed them. As she surveyed Facebook groups that offer goods to people in need, Cooper had an idea.
“Reading about families who could not afford basic items — dinner or diapers or whatever — I started thinking, if so many families are not able to access these everyday items, I bet they do not own books for their children,” Cooper said. “I just posted a picture of some of my shelves and said, ‘I’m a children’s book author and I have all these freebies. Would anybody be interested?’ I was expecting a handful of responses and I got over 50 in one day.”
She realized there was a big need.
“There were stories of kids who are avid readers but have a single mom with five kids, who works three jobs, can’t get to the library, definitely can’t purchase books, or of families who had recently relocated to trailers or shelters and couldn’t bring books with them,” Cooper said. “I got maybe 40 more responses than I was planning for, but I thought, ‘I’m going to try to send books to all of these people.’”
Aware that she was just scratching the surface, Cooper established A Book of My Own as a nonprofit and began soliciting donations of new (or gently used) books and donations to help defray postage costs of about $250 a week.