Open Books West Loop is
Open Books West Loop is open for walk-in business!
New business hours are Monday - Sunday from 10 am to 5 pm.
Open Books Pilsen is open again (partially)!
Safety First: We aren't comfortable opening the entire store, so we've opened one of our garage doors and set up a fresh-air small shop.
Extreme Social Distancing: There's no contact with Open Books staff. To pay, you can drop money in a cash box or Venmo or Paypal. It's a Self-Service Bookstore, perhaps the first of its kind.
Book Donations: We're still accepting them. Bring it.
Exclusive Dolly Parton Film Screening
Save the Date December 9th at 7 p.m. for ‘The Library That Dolly Built: Celebrating the People Who Made Dolly’s Dream Come True’!
Virtual Creative Writing Club!
Young writers! Starting Sept 15, join us for writing prompts, games, & a chance to share your writing with others. We hope to see you there!
2020 Open Books Writing Contest WINNERS
We received many outstanding submissions and were faced with an incredibly difficult decision. Each piece was judged in a two-part judging process, and after much deliberation, we are thrilled to announce the winners from each age group.
Please join us in celebrating the following young writers:
Buy Books to Build Home Libraries for Under-Resourced Chicago Children
With schools closed and Chicago Public Schools encouraging independent reading time, building at home libraries is vital to children’s success now more than ever.
All proceeds benefit our Book Granting program to get even more books into kids’ hands.
Literacy Resources
Check out these great literacy resources while you shelter in place
For Parents, PreK, and Grades 1-12!
We Want Your Books!
Each year, generous readers donate hundreds of thousands of books to support literacy. We sell those books in our stores and online to help fund our programs, use and give them away in our literacy and book grant programs.
Financial Donation
The generosity of donors helps us engage more than 6,000 youth through our literacy programs and give way more than 180,000 books to children and families each year. Together, we can transform lives through reading, writing, and the giving power of used books.
Dolly Parton's Imagination Library
Open Books is thrilled and honored to be bringing Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library to our city as their exclusive Chicago affiliate for children ages 0-5!
Pilsen
Visit StoreStore is temporarily closed.
Open for Donations (ring the bell or call when you arrive):
Mon-Fri, 9am-6pm
Sat-Sun, 10am-4pm
905 W. 19th St.
Chicago, IL 60608
312.243.9776
Volunteer
To get started as a volunteer, please join us for a new volunteer information session!
Literacy Programs
Open Books transforms students’ reading and writing skills through experienced educators who deliver innovative instruction, passionate volunteers who serve as positive role models and provide enthusiastic support, safe learning environments for practice, exploration, and social-emotional growth, and access to high-quality books and tailored curricula.
We collect used books.
All books in good condition are welcome, and all donations are tax-deductible. Find out what we take and how to get them to us.
We sell and grant them.
We give books to students in our instructional programs, donate them to educators and students through our book programs, and sell them in our Chicago stores and online.
They fund our programs.
We provide transformational literacy experiences for more than 5,000 K-12 students every year, from reading help through novel-writing.
Volunteers = magic.
Volunteers work with our students, organize our books, staff our events, and make everything happen.