What if this holiday season you could skip the lines, dodge the crowds, avoid internet-search fatigue … and get the perfect gift for all the bookworms on your list?

Some might call that a holiday miracle; we’d call it a beloved annual tradition at the Free Library of Philadelphia!

Each holiday season, the Free Library of Philadelphia Foundation creates festive commemorative bookplates that members of the community can gift in honor or in memory of their favorite literature lovers. For a gift of just $50, a bookplate inscribed with your loved one’s name will be placed inside a new book in the Free Library’s collection.

This year’s holiday bookplates feature images reproduced from original works housed in the collections of the Free Library’s Print and Picture and Rare Book departments. One showcases a stunning 1930s-era woodcut from Philadelphia-born Herbert Pullinger titled Snow in Town – So. Broad St.; the other features a charming watercolor of Bunnies in the Snow by the beloved children’s illustrator Beatrix Potter.

To order this unique and meaningful holiday gift, just fill out our simple form!

What’s more, like all the best gifts, this one keeps on giving. When you give a bookplate for your loved one, you aren’t just buying a gift for one individual; you’re impacting tens of thousands of people across the region.

This is because the Free Library depends on an important public-private partnership in order to offer the types of life-changing services, programs, and resources we are known for. The City of Philadelphia provides for the Library's facilities and infrastructure, but many critical programs that draw people into our neighborhood libraries and foster literacy are only made possible by private gifts—which includes the holiday bookplates—from people like you.

Think of it as giving the gift of literacy to your fellow Philadelphians. Now that’s a gift that’s twice as nice! 

Though your generosity to the Free Library Fund, our city’s youngest learners will be given access to afterschool literacy lessons steeped in math and science skills. Curiosity seekers will have world-class special collections at their fingertips. Lifelong learners will explore workshops and build new skills in our Senior Center. And job seekers and entrepreneurs will have access to career-literacy resources that will allow them to help keep Philadelphia’s economic engines humming.  

Don’t miss this special opportunity to spread the holiday cheer to your loved ones … and beyond! Give a commemorative holiday bookplate today, and the Free Library will ensure the gift of literacy is spread throughout our entire city.