Across more than three decades, Parton’s effort to put books directly into the hands of young children grew from a program serving her home county in Tennessee into an international literacy initiative responsible for distributing more than 330 million books.
By Levi Gwaltney for Las Cruces Digest
Sources: Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham (via Facebook), Library of Congress
Images: Courtesy
Cover Image: Dolly Parton reads from her book, “Coat of Many Colors,” adapted from her song, to children in the Library’s Great Hall in 2018. Photo: Shawn Miller.
When New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham mourned Dolly Parton this week, she remembered an entertainer whose music spanned six decades — but devoted much of her statement to another legacy.
Books.
Nearly 2 million of them have reached New Mexico children through Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library, according to the governor. It is an extraordinary number for a program that began in New Mexico with just eight children in Bayard.
Parton, whose career spanned six decades and included songs such as “Jolene,” “I Will Always Love You” and “9 to 5,” also founded Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library, which provides free books to children from birth to age 5 regardless of family income.
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But a remembrance published this week by the Library of Congress puts those New Mexico numbers into an even larger context.
Across more than three decades, Parton’s effort to put books directly into the hands of young children grew from a program serving her home county in Tennessee into an international literacy initiative responsible for distributing more than 330 million books.
And among the institutions that recognized what Parton was building was the Library of Congress.
From Eight Children in Bayard
As Las Cruces Digest previously reported, New Mexico’s relationship with the Imagination Library began in 2010, when Loren and Barbara Nelson established the state’s first affiliate in Grant County.
Eight children in Bayard received books through that first effort.
Within three years, the Grant County affiliate was delivering books to 80% of children younger than 5 in the county. Nancy Stephens, a 2000 New Mexico State University graduate, became executive director of the Grant County affiliate in 2016 and now also serves as state director for Imagination Library of New Mexico.
New Mexico State University graduate Nancy Stephens, center, is the state director for Imagination Library of New Mexico, a program that has sent nearly two million books to children in New Mexico. (NMSU Photo by Jay Hemphill)
Children enrolled in the program receive a free, age-appropriate book each month from birth through age 5.
Stephens told NMSU earlier this year that putting a physical book into a child’s home serves a purpose beyond reading proficiency.
“People are sometimes skeptical about the books being free,” Stephens said, “but there really are no strings. Occasionally, we are asked why we don’t provide tablets instead. With a tablet, parental involvement is less; you don’t have the back-and-forth. Imagination Library’s benefits extend far beyond reading proficiency. When you read to babies, toddlers or preschoolers, they naturally want to be in your lap, which creates a warm, personal connection.”
What started with eight children has grown into a statewide program that Lujan Grisham said has distributed nearly 2 million books to New Mexico youngsters.
From Tennessee to 330 Million Books
Parton’s original idea began on a similarly modest scale.
She established the Imagination Library in her home county in rural East Tennessee in 1995, initially enrolling 1,760 children younger than 5.
Each received one free book by mail every month, potentially giving a child as many as 60 books of their own by the time they reached school age.
The idea spread.
By March 2021, according to the Library of Congress, more than 1.8 million books were being mailed each month to children in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia and Indigenous communities around the world.
The Library now places the program’s cumulative distribution at more than 330 million books.
Its success also brought Parton’s literacy work to the nation’s library.
The Day Dolly Brought the 100 Millionth Book
Parton visited the Library of Congress in 2018 carrying a particularly appropriate donation: the 100 millionth book distributed through the Imagination Library.
She spent the day at the Library, speaking with then-Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden and reading to children in the Great Hall.
Robert R. Newlen, acting Librarian of Congress, remembered the effect of her visit. “Due to our collections and their importance, we get a number of well-known people in the Library,” Newlen said, “but when Dolly Parton came in the building that day it was like all the electricity came on at once.”
Parton read — and sang part of — “Coat of Many Colors” to the children.
Three years later, the Library of Congress awarded the Imagination Library its 2021 David M. Rubenstein Prize, one of the Library’s highest literacy honors, accompanied by a $150,000 award.
“Dolly Parton’s work was precisely what we envisioned this prize rewarding,” Rubenstein said. “A well-run, highly dedicated literacy program that operated both with passion and a clear sense of mission.”
The Library had previously recognized the Imagination Library with a Best Practices award in 2014.
The ‘Book Lady’
For Parton, the origins of the program were personal.
Her father could not read.
When Parton spoke with Hayden about the Imagination Library, she recalled that he lived long enough to see what his daughter’s literacy project was becoming.
“My dad got to live long enough to see a lot of it come into being,” Parton said. “He took such pride in the fact that the little kids call me the ‘book lady.’ He was prouder of that than anything.”
She said the program “started from a true place in my heart.”
That connection between Parton’s childhood and her later work also runs through her music.
A 100% adorable photo of Dolly Parton at age 12. This is a likely a reissue sleeve to one of her first recordings. Library of Congress Music Division.
Her 1971 song “Coat of Many Colors,” which the Library added to the National Recording Registry in 2011, grew from Parton’s memories of poverty, family and being ridiculed by classmates for wearing a coat her mother had sewn from donated scraps of fabric.
Parton later told the Library that writing the song allowed her to transform a painful childhood memory “into a message of understanding and acceptance.”
Teachers subsequently told her they used the song to help children understand bullying and self-worth.
The Legacy New Mexico Children Inherited
Those two strands of Parton’s life — storyteller and advocate for children — are difficult to separate.
Her songs told stories. Her Imagination Library put stories into children’s hands.
And in New Mexico, something that began with eight children in Grant County became part of an international effort that ultimately distributed hundreds of millions of books.
That was the legacy Lujan Grisham emphasized following Parton’s death.
“New Mexico benefited tremendously from Dolly’s extraordinary generosity,” the governor said. “In our state, her Imagination Library launched in 2010 with eight kids in Grant County. Today, nearly 2 million books have been distributed to New Mexico’s youngsters because one woman believed a book in the hands of a child could change everything.”
The Library of Congress remembrance offers a national counterpart to that New Mexico story.
Parton became one of the most recognizable entertainers in American culture. Her songs entered the National Recording Registry. Her papers became part of the Library’s collections. Her career became entwined with the history of country music itself.
But her father was proudest that children called his daughter something considerably simpler.
The book lady.
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