By the time Dolly Parton died on Aug. 25, 2026, her Imagination Library had distributed more than 332 million children’s books to babies and young children in all 50 U.S. states and four other countries: Canada, the U.K., Australia and Ireland. If placed end to end, the books would circle the Earth 1.8 times.

The free program mails an age-appropriate book each month to every enrolled child from birth through age 5. A child can receive as many as 60 books before graduating from the program. Although a selection committee updates the book lists annually, every participant receives Watty Piper’s “The Little Engine That Could” as a first book and Nancy Carlson’s “Look Out Kindergarten, Here I Come!” as a final book.

Alex H. Poole, an associate professor of information science at Drexel University who studies reading behavior, wrote that research for an upcoming academic article found the monthly books help families develop children’s literacy, prepare them for kindergarten and encourage a lifelong interest in reading.

A focus on early literacy

Parton was best known as a country singer, but her long career also included work as a songwriter, entrepreneur, actor and philanthropist. She created the Imagination Library because she, like many early-childhood literacy experts, believed that reading begins at home.

Parents and other guardians are a child’s first teachers, and reading aloud can contribute to future literacy. Children who struggle with reading in first grade generally continue to experience literacy difficulties later in life. Young children in lower-income households also typically have less access to books and hear fewer words than children in higher-income households, a class-based difference that can contribute to later disparities in reading skills.

A program rooted in Tennessee

The Imagination Library began modestly, much like Parton’s upbringing. She was born in a one-room cabin in an Appalachian area of Tennessee that had no running water or electricity. The program launched in her hometown of Sevier County in late 1995, with an initial order of 1,760 books for local children.

Parton said the program came from “a very serious place in my heart.” She repeatedly explained that her father’s illiteracy inspired her to establish it with him in mind.

“Daddy couldn’t read nor write, and it always just seemed to cripple him, and he was embarrassed about it,” Parton told American Libraries in 2018. She later said, “My daddy just loved it when all the little kids would call me ‘The Book Lady.’”

Parton described herself as a lifelong reader. “I always loved books,” she said in an interview. “I don’t remember learning to read, it was just something I always did. That’s how I knew there was a world beyond the Smoky Mountains.”

How the Imagination Library operates

The Dollywood Foundation covers overhead and administrative expenses, coordinates the book-selection committee, maintains the ordering system and arranges fulfillment. The program is available to any child in a participating community, regardless of household income.

To join the program, a community must secure a local partner. Those partners publicize the program and enroll children, while paying US$2.60 per child each month to cover the wholesale purchase and mailing of the books. Local partners include schools, public libraries, government agencies and nonprofit organizations, including foundations.

Nonpartisan committees of educators and librarians select the books. Nearly all are published by Penguin Random House. The Imagination Library continues under the direction of Dollywood Foundation president Jeff Conyers.

A Penguin Random House vice president said, “We will continue that work with the utmost pride and care, just as we know she would have wanted.” Funding challenges, however, have emerged in at least four states. Because communities can join only by securing a local partner that covers the monthly cost of buying and mailing the books, how those states resolve their funding questions is worth watching for what it means for enrollment and access.

Expansion and broader access

By 2001, the Imagination Library had expanded to affiliates in nearly a dozen states. The following year, it reached 92 Native American communities through partnerships with the Cherokee Nation, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Parents as Teachers and the National Center for Family Literacy.

The program mailed its one-millionth book in late 2003 and launched its first statewide program in 2004, appropriately in Tennessee. It introduced bilingual Spanish-English titles in 2003 and launched a bilingual Spanish website in 2022. Beginning in 2011, the Imagination Library also supplied audio and braille books for children who needed them.

Parton marked the distribution of the program’s 100-millionth book in 2018. “We never thought it would be this big,” she told NPR. “I just wanted to do something great for my dad and for my home county and, at the most, maybe a couple of counties over. But then it just took wings of its own.”

The program shipped its 200-millionth book in 2023 and its 300-millionth book in 2025. By 2024, one in seven U.S. children younger than 5 was receiving free books each month through the initiative.

Other programs also provide free books to young children. Reach Out and Read in the United States has distributed books during children’s medical checkups since 1989. Bookstart, which began in 1992, provides every baby in England, Wales and Northern Ireland with a free book and guidance on reading aloud.

Reported benefits for children and families

Parents and caregivers have praised the program. Studies have found that children become excited when books addressed to them arrive in the mail, while children and their families often take pride in owning books.

“A lot of (children) wait at the mailbox at the first of the month,” Parton told The Washington Post. “They think that I bring the book myself, like I’m Santa Claus.” One parent told an education researcher, “We read the books when they come in the mail instead of watching TV.”

The books can encourage children to make reading a regular habit. Studies have found that children who are read to more often by family members spend more time reading with them each day and ask more frequently to have books read aloud.

The program is intended not only to foster a love of reading but also to support cognitive development and elementary-school readiness by expanding vocabulary and improving listening skills. Children who receive the books tend to know more letters, understand how books and printed words work, recognize and retain the sounds in words, and understand and use more spoken words.

Children enrolled in the program have also scored higher than their peers on a standard early-reading-skills test administered for kindergarten entry. In line with Parton’s original goal, the Imagination Library may have its greatest effect on reading habits in lower-income households, where children’s books are often scarce.

This article was written by Alex H. Poole, associate professor of information science at Drexel University, and republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. The story was originally featured on Fortune.com.