The purpose of this study was to document teachers' use of and student responses to a set of early literacy texts designed as a school-home literacy project. Participants in this study were 23 children from six urban kindergarten classrooms and their kindergarten teachers; 11 with high letter identification at entry (HLID) and 12 with low letter identification skills (LLID). Data collection included 82 classroom visits from November to May, over 100 running records, and student scores on the TERA-2. Teachers used the early literacy texts in shared reading, guided reading, and independent reading contexts. Books were typically introduced in large-group settings and reintroduced in small guided reading groups as teachers provided varying levels of support related to student needs. Keep Books were also used in thematic study and across other contexts including the play corner and writing activities. Student response to the texts was overwhelmingly positive with a strong pattern of spontaneous, playful, unprompted language production across all six classrooms. Students' success in reading these books supported a sense of ownership and provided opportunities to talk explicitly about print features, words, reading, and writing. By the end of the year, however, researchers noted a differential pattern of responses to the Keep Books between LLID and HLID students. (Contains 1 table.)