On Wednesday, Alex and I woke to the news of Dolly Parton’s passing. Alex was really emotional about the news, which surprised me a little. I knew a few of her songs, but not much about her life or why she meant so much to so many people.
While most of the tributes to Dolly Parton will understandably focus on her incredible contribution to music, there’s another part of her legacy that book lovers should know about. In 1995, inspired by her father, who never learned to read or write, Dolly started the Imagination Library. The idea was simple: send children a free book in the mail every month until they turn five. What started in her hometown in Tennessee grew into something extraordinary. More than 325 million books have now found their way into the hands and homes of children.
The generosity of that is mind-blowing to me. And I love that the books were sent directly to each child’s home, giving them that magical experience of receiving a physical book of their very own to keep and cherish. Her dad lived long enough to see the programme begin to grow, and Dolly said he was incredibly proud that local children started calling her “The Book Lady.”
Brené Brown later used the story when writing about joy – that wonderful ability to delight in someone else taking something you created and making it shine in an entirely new way. Not everyone has that generosity of spirit. Ego and insecurity can so easily get in the way of genuinely celebrating someone else’s success.
There’s something pretty special about a person who was so willing to share what she had with other people. Sometimes that was her music, sometimes her platform, and sometimes it was putting millions of books into the hands of children who might otherwise have grown up without books of their own. Her dedication to literacy, and the way she used her success to make life a little better for other people, is an incredible legacy.