It was sad but strangely fitting that Dolly Parton should have died during the UK’s National Year of Reading, given the way the much-loved country singer used her wealth and influence to promote reading.

Parton’s Imagination Library has provided hundreds of millions of books to pre-school children around the world since 1995. While books are of course important, my work as a reading and language academic makes clear this must be complemented with robust reading instruction and support that is sustained through childhood and adolescence for those who need it.

The singer was well aware that she was judged by her appearance, and used this to her advantage. Behind her almost cartoonish “cover” was an incredibly smart woman who used her profile to address the things she cared about: community, poverty, education and reading.

For her Tennessee community, she built the Dollywood theme park in 1986 to bring employment, the Dollywood Foundation in 1988 to promote education, and the Imagination Library in 1995 to give children access to books.

The Imagination Library gifts a book a month to children from birth to five years. What started in Dolly’s home state in the US has extended to Canada, the UK, Australia and Ireland. In any area where there is an active programme partner, parents and carers simply sign up and the rest is taken care of.

In 2025, the programme celebrated its 30th anniversary and hit a milestone of distributing more than 300 million books to children. In the UK, Imagination........

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