Families describe how free books embedded bedtime reading from infancy
Dolly Parton, who died this week at age 80, built the Imagination Library in 1995 in the rural Appalachian community where she grew up. The literacy program mails one free book per month to children from birth to age five, and by its 30th anniversary in 2025 had distributed more than 300 million books — one mailed every 78 seconds, according to the organization.
In an open letter on the Imagination Library website, Parton said she founded the program as a tribute to her father, whose difficult Appalachian upbringing did not allow him to finish school or learn to read and write. “He was the smartest man I have ever known, but I know in my heart his inability to read probably kept him from fulfilling all of his dreams,” Parton wrote. “Inspiring kids to love to read became my mission.”
Before his death, Parton wrote, her father told her the Imagination Library was “probably the most important thing I had ever done.” “I can’t tell you how much that meant to me, because I created the Imagination Library as a tribute to my Daddy,” she added.
The program first launched in Sevier County, Tennessee, before expanding across the United States in 2000. It moved into Canada in 2006, the United Kingdom the following year, Australia in 2013 and Ireland in 2019. By 2025, Parton wrote, the program was giving a book a month to “well over 3 million children.”
Families who receive the books described to BBC News how the deliveries shaped their daily routines and their children’s development. London mother-of-two Harriet Anscombe signed her daughter up for the scheme when she was three months old; the girl is now four.
“It just blows my mind that it’s readily available for every family that lives in my borough,” Anscombe said. She said the books helped her establish a reading-focused bedtime routine from infancy. “I think that, if I didn’t get those books, maybe I wouldn’t have started doing bedtime stories till she was two — but because we were getting them so early, it embedded story time into our routine from when she was just a couple of months old,” she said. “She probably doesn’t remember a time when we weren’t reading stories.”
In Colorado, Ciara Fernandez Faber signed her son up for the program about eight years ago. His favorite book for years was “I Am A Rainbow,” written by Parton herself. “We read it almost every night, and I never got tired of reading it to him,” Faber, 42, said. “It’s a book about different emotions, and so we would act out the different emotions, the different faces.” Faber said her son would point to Parton’s picture at the back of the book and call her “the Book Queen.”
In Dublin, Helen Cashell signed up both her children, now aged seven and five. “Whether it was same-sex families or just different types of families, things about bravery, courage, bullying, things about different identities,” Cashell said. “There were themes that were addressed in a lot of the books that would have really helped us navigate issues.”
In inner-city Sydney, first-time mother Paige Stewart said her twin daughters, now four, “had a speech delay and some learning difficulties” before enrolling. Stewart said she noticed a change after the second book arrived. “Not only did they learn their colours from that book… it kind of set the tone for them speaking and their joy for books,” Stewart said. She has since become a vocal advocate for the program, encouraging other parents to enroll their children.
Alabama grandmother Kristina Hadley signed up her granddaughter, Eillie Elaine, “before she was actually born.” The child, now nearly three, has her own bookshelf in their shared household, Hadley said, “and one whole shelf is for her Dolly books.” “She likes to go to the mailbox, and she’s like, ‘Ms Dolly! Ms Dolly!’ and I’m like, ‘Well, let’s go see if Ms Dolly sent you a book!’” Hadley, 53, said. A lifelong Parton fan, she said she was at work when a friend texted to say the singer had died.
In Manitoba, Canada, Geoff Blacklin, 67, said he and his wife signed up their grandchildren for Imagination Library after a local doctor brought the program to their region. “The biggest thing that I like is the fact that she didn’t do anything for recognition,” Blacklin said. “She gave families more than books. She gave children a love of reading, precious moments with loved ones, and opportunities to learn and dream.”
Children’s author Selina Brown, whose book “My Rice Is Best” was selected for distribution, said the program also widens the reach of individual titles. “To choose between gas, electric, food or a book, you’re going to choose a core need — but with the Dolly Parton Imagination Library, you don’t have to do that,” Brown said. She said 14,000 copies of her book had been sent to children in the UK through the program.
Parton wrote that the program’s expansion fulfilled a hope she had not dared to imagine at the start. “In the beginning, my hope was simply to inspire the children in my home county, but here we are today with a worldwide programme that gives a book a month to well over 3 million children,” she said on the Imagination Library website, thanking the partners “who have embraced my dream and made it their own.”