01/09/2026
"I'll be as proud of this as anything I've ever done," Dolly Parton once said. "When they lay me down, I'll be thinking of the Imagination Library." Not the songs, not the stardom -- the books.
There are millions of children who can all say the same simple thing: "Dolly sent me books." Since 1995, her Imagination Library has mailed more than 330 million free books to children -- one a month, addressed to each child by name, from birth until they turn five, reaching more than 3 million kids today, roughly one in seven American children under five, as well as children in four other countries. "Inspiring kids to love to read became my passion and my mission," she said.
Dolly built it as a tribute to her father, Robert Lee Parton, a sharecropper who never learned to read. "I know in my heart his inability to read probably kept him from fulfilling all of his dreams," she said.
The children who received her books took to calling her "the Book Lady" -- a name, she said, her father loved more than her fame: "That meant more to him than the fact that I had become a star and worked my butt off." Before he died in 2000, he told her the Imagination Library was probably the most important thing she had ever done. Millions of children, and the parents who read to them, would agree.
--> Fans are now honoring Dolly the way she'd have wanted -- by giving the gift of reading to the next child. You can donate to send books to children who might not otherwise have them, or check whether the program is available where you live and enroll a child of your own -- both at https://donate.imaginationlibrary.com/
- Dolly spent her life putting books in children's hands, and the picture book "Coat of Many Colors" tells the story of the childhood that made her want no child to go without -- for ages 4 and up at https://bookshop.org/a/8011/9798217140640 (Bookshop) and https://amzn.to/4wPLUUs (Amazon)
- For older readers, her own illustrated memoir "Dolly Parton, Songteller: My Life in Lyrics" walks through the stories behind 175 of her songs, from "Coat of Many Colors" to "Jolene" to "I Will Always Love You" at https://amzn.to/4xgl9ta (Amazon) and https://bookshop.org/a/8011/9781797224732 (Bookshop)
For more books to introduce kids to her extraordinary life and legacy, we recommend the picture books "Dolly Parton: Little People, Big Dreams” for ages 5 to 8 (https://www.amightygirl.com/dolly-parton-little-people) and "Dazzlin' Dolly" for ages 5 to 9 (https://www.amightygirl.com/dazzlin-dolly), and the illustrated biography "Who Is Dolly Parton?" for ages 8 to 12 (https://www.amightygirl.com/who-is-dolly-parton)
There is also a fascinating biography on her life and impact on working women, "She Come By It Natural: Dolly Parton and the Women Who Lived By Her Songs," at https://www.amightygirl.com/she-come-by-it-natural
Credit: Matt Macauley - X /
