Dolly Parton's Imagination Library

Evan got his first book from Dolly Parton's Imagination Library and he loves it!

It just arrived Friday and as you can see it's, The Little Engine That Could. :) He will recieve one new book every MONTH until he is in kindergarten! That is a lot of books so I am very impressed with this.

I hadn't read this story in AGES so it was actually very interesting and even funny to read. When it was written, a "jack knife" was an appropriate gift for a "good little boy" (like a swiss army knife). I know many parents that would not allow this even in their homes (not ours! MY parents let us play with matches! thanks mom and dad!! ;) he he he he) much less as a gift to their impressionable children so, I got a good giggle out of it.

As you can see, he is VERY serious about his reading...



To find out MORE and how you can register you child (ages birth to 5? years old) Dolly Parton's Imagination Library, go to this site: http://www.imaginationlibrary.com/. It isn't available everywhere but you can 'petition' for it in your area. What started out as a benifit to one very poor county in the mountains of Tennessee is currently benefiting 3 countries. I hope you will go to the site to see why and how she does it but here is the posted reason she started it and that you can get your community involved...

In 1996, Dolly Parton launched an exciting new effort to benefit the children of her home county in east Tennessee. Dolly wanted to foster a love of reading among her county’s preschool children and their families. She wanted children to be excited about books and to feel the magic that books can create. Moreover, she could insure that every child would have books, regardless of their family’s income.So she decided to mail a brand new, age appropriate book each month to every child under 5 in Sevier County. With the arrival of every child’s first book, the classic The Little Engine That Could ™, every child could now experience the joy of finding their very own book in their mail box. These moments continue each month until the child turns 5—and in their very last month in the program they receive Look Out Kindergarten Here I Come.Needless to say the experience has been a smashing success. So much so that many other communities clamored to provide the Imagination Library to their children. Dolly thought long and hard about it and decided her Foundation should develop a way for other communities to participate. The Foundation asked a blue ribbon panel of experts to select just the right books and secured Penguin Group USA to be the exclusive publisher for the Imagination Library. Moreover a database was built to keep track of the information.Consequently, in March of 2000 she stood at the podium of The National Press Club in Washington, D.C. and revealed the plan for other communities to provide the Imagination Library to their children. And as only Dolly can say it, she wanted to “put her money where her mouth is – and with such a big mouth that’s a pretty large sum of money” and provide the books herself to the children of Branson, Missouri and Myrtle Beach, South Carolina – communities where her businesses now operate. If other leaders in their communities were willing to do the same, well something big might just happen.You know what? It did!!
David Dotson, Executive Director of The Dollywood Foundation, Dolly Parton, Lady Jackson, President of the Governor’s Books from Birth Foundation, and Phil Bredesen, Governor, State of Tennessee.
Here’s how it works:A community must make the program accessible to all preschool children in their area. The community pays for the books and mailing, promotes the program, registers the children, and enters the information into the database.
From there The Dollywood Foundation takes over and manages the system to deliver the books to the home. You can find out more of the operational details on other pages in this website – so what are you waiting for! Hundreds of communities are providing books to hundreds of thousands of children.