Building a Love for Reading with Dolly Parton's Imagination Library

Reading is both an imperative skill to develop from a young age, and a skill that sparks imagination, creativity, and kindergarten readiness. Dolly Parton recognized the importance of reading for young children in 1995, when she first founded Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library.

The program began small, distributing only in Parton's home county of East Tennessee, but the growth it has seen over the past 29 years is truly astonishing. To put the growth into perspective, the first shipment of books in 1995 totalled at 1,700 books, and today, the program sends out over a million books each month, ensuring that 1 of 7 kids in the United States, who are under the age of five, are able to receive a free book monthly. Further than this, the program has now been expanded to parts of the United Kingdom, Canada, the Republic of Ireland and Australia. 

Concerning the growth of the branch distributing to Spotsylvania County, since its establishment in March of 2020, it has registered almost 3,000 children. Local affiliate, Elizabeth DiDonato, who largely believes that literature is the cornerstone for early childhood development says, “A child’s brain is 90% developed in the first 2,000 days of their life.” This emphasizes the importance of early literacy for children, both in their preparation for kindergarten, and the development of their love for reading that can last a lifetime. 

DiDonato continues, saying, “A child’s development is an interactive process that is not predetermined. Brains are built, not born, and the early years last forever.” 

This is where Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library comes into play. This program is in place to ensure that all children have access to books, no matter their family’s financial status, and to encourage an environment within the child’s home that is conducive to reading as a family activity. DiDonato says, “The program inspires a love of reading with books, free of charge, to families, through local community partnerships.” The program aims to provide hand-selected, age-appropriate picture books to as many children as possible each month, and this number is constantly growing.

DiDonato says she urges parents to register their young children for the program because of its many benefits. She points out that if a child registers at birth, by the time they age out of the program at 5 years old, they will have received 60 different, free books.

Additionally, the technique of mailing the books to the child’s homes builds anticipation, and as DiDonato says, “The Imagination Library's home gifting model gets children excited about owning books and inspires shared family reading by getting books directly to children at home with their names on the label.”

DiDonato goes on to say, “The benefits include improved reading skills. For example, Virginia's fourth graders’ reading scores dropped by ten points, the biggest decline in the nation. Studies also reveal that children who start kindergarten with a higher skill set generally experience fewer grade repetitions and higher post-secondary attendance compared with those who start with weaker skills. Higher education translates to lower unemployment and higher incomes.”

Overall, the importance of literature has been proven during early childhood, and in-turn the impact that Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library has is huge. 

To conclude, DiDonato says, “The positive views of the program and its impacts are present regardless of the demographic characteristics of the community or its participants, and longer program participation results in more positive outcomes.”

If you, or anyone you know has a child under the age of five and would be interested in registering for the program you can sign up at https://imaginationlibrary.com or contact and affiliate at Imaginationlibrary@tabumc.org.