08/26/2026
📖❤️📚
Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library & C.R.I.T. Library Early Literacy Program ✨📚
Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library continues to spark a love of reading in children across the nation — and we are proud to share that this wonderful foundation is part of our C.R.I.T. Library Early Literacy Program.
Since its beginning, the Imagination Library has mailed over 332 million free books to children around the world. Today, it reaches more than 3.5 million children every month, gifting high‑quality early literacy books to little readers from birth through age five.
Here at C.R.I.T. Library Archives, we celebrate this partnership and the joy it brings to our families. Every book placed in a child’s hands is a seed of imagination, confidence, and lifelong learning.
Thank you, Dolly Parton & Imagination Library, for helping our community grow one story at a time.
ALA is heartbroken at the passing of country music legend, cultural icon, and champion of literacy Dolly Parton.
Dolly’s award-winning Imagination Library initiative, inspired by her father’s inability to read or write, has put hundreds of millions of free books into the hands of children across America and was considered by her to be one of her greatest achievements.
“We’re giving books to kids who wouldn’t have a chance to get them otherwise,” she told American Libraries in a 2018 interview. “A lot of people think this is just for poor children—it’s for all children. It’s important to get books into the hands of any child that we can.”
ALA was proud to confer Dolly with an honorary lifetime membership, the Association’s highest honor, in 2023 for her lasting impact on librarianship, libraries, and the communities they serve.
Dolly was also part of ALA’s Celebrity READ campaign, in which she holds a copy of 'The Little Engine That Could.'
“I’ve always related to that book because I’m the little engine that did!” she said.
Thank you, Dolly. ❤️
