Pages & Stages - Grow With Books is a partnership between the Friends of the Brown County Library and the N.E.W. Community Clinic, which administers the federal WIC program for Brown County (“WIC” is the acronym for the US Department of Agriculture’s Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children).

Brown County's NEWCC/WIC program is the second largest in the state of Wisconsin, second only to Milwaukee County. There are approximately 5,200 participants in our local WIC that include pregnant women, breastfeeding and non-breastfeeding women, infants, and children up to the age of 5. The volume of children in the program includes about 800 one-year olds, 700 two-year olds, 650 three-year olds, and 700 four-year olds.

The goal of Pages and Stages is to increase early literacy in Brown County to families who may benefit from our help the most, in this case, WIC participants.  Under the program, parents or guardians of children eligible for WIC may select age-specific children's books in English or bi-lingual Spanish. In addition to reading at home, each book has a Friends' label with a QR code to the calendar of family events at each of the Brown County Library's 8 locations, as well as the Library's book mobile.  This is a fantastic way to promote the love of reading by getting books into the hands of children and library information to their families.

This program was begun in 2025, and thanks to the generosity of early contributors, the Friends have already been able to add books for newborns to the Pages and Stages offerings! In fact, between May 2025 and April 2026, 200 babies received board books with bold, high-contrast words and images suitable for young, developing eyesight.

You can help sustain this program:

Please consider helping the Friends continue the success of Pages and Stages by making a donation.  Click the following button to get started:

Donate to Pages & Stages