Newsletter article
How Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library is helping kids start reading when they’re very young
The Conversation
02 Oct 2026
Featured in Collection : Drexel's Newest Publications
Abstract
By the time Dolly Parton died on Aug. 25, 2026, her Imagination Library had gifted more than 332 million children’s books to babies and kids in all 50 states and four other countries: Canada, the U.K., Australia and Ireland.
If they were set end to end, these books would circle the earth 1.8 times.
This free program mails an age-appropriate book monthly to each enrolled child from birth to age 5, meaning up to 60 books will fill these children’s shelves by the time they graduate from the program.
Though a selection committee tweaks the lists annually, each participant receives Watty Piper’s “The Little Engine That Could” as their first book and Nancy Carlson’s “Look Out Kindergarten, Here I Come!” as their last.
I’m an information science professor who studies reading behavior. In my research for an upcoming academic article about the Imagination Library, I’ve found that its free monthly books help families develop children’s literacy, prepare children for kindergarten and encourage a lifelong love of reading.
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Details
- Title
- How Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library is helping kids start reading when they’re very young
- Creators
- Alex H Poole - Drexel University, Information Science
- Publication Details
- The Conversation
- Resource Type
- Newsletter article
- Language
- English
- Academic Unit
- Information Science
- Other Identifier
- 991022233939104721