Dolly Parton died on Tuesday, leaving behind an incredible legacy of music, advocacy and books for millions of children across the world.
Her family asked that instead of flowers, we give to her Imagination Library. I have watched that request move across the internet since her death, and I keep thinking, “Utah, this one is ours to answer.”
A few months ago I was in Midway, in a home full of women, talking about the thing I care about most: giving back and what it looks like to build something that outlasts us. Dolly was an amazing example of that.
Sister Kristen Oaks, wife of President Dallin H. Oaks of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, walked in. I gave her a hug and before she even took her coat off, she looked at me and asked, “Kristin, what are you going to do about early childhood literacy?”
Not “isn’t it a shame.” Not “someone should really do something.” She asked, “What are you going to do?”
I told her I was working on it, but I didn’t know what my part looked like yet. And before she left, with that sparkle in her eye, she said, “Kristin, I cannot wait to hear what you do to help early childhood literacy.”
Dolly Parton, ‘the book lady’
I have thought about that every day since. And every road I went down led to the same name, Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library. I fell in love with it. So simple, so smart, so full of heart. A book in the mail every month with your child’s name on it, and a child who learns that reading is a gift meant for them.
Dolly started her Imagination Library in 1995 for her father. He never learned to read or write, and he carried the shame of that his whole life. Dolly used to wonder how far he might have gone if someone had put a book in his hands early on. So she decided no child in her county would grow up the way he did. She started mailing books out to the children in her county, addressed to them. Today, Imagination Library mails out over 3 million books a month.
He lived to hear little kids call his daughter “the book lady,” and she said that meant more to him than anything else she ever did. More than the No. 1 hits. More than the movies. A farmer’s daughter, honoring her father by making sure other people’s children could learn to read.
Utah needs the Imagination Library
Utah needs Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library today more than ever. Half of our third graders cannot read at grade level. Half! This is not a pocket of the state, and it is not somebody else’s kid. It is Park City and it is Piute County. It’s not separated by income or ZIP code; it’s an issue in all of our neighborhoods. Our own Legislature set a goal of 70% third grade reading proficiency by 2027, and we are about to miss it badly. This is a Utah problem, and it belongs to all of us.
Reading starts long before third grade. A child’s first teacher is a parent, and reading starts at home, snuggled up, turning pages together, and reading out loud. This is where a love of reading is born, and Dolly created a program for us to help put more books in more homes.
She figured it out 30 years ago. A program for every child, birth to 5, in every ZIP code, with no income test, no application, no label. We already have over 3,000 Utah kids enrolled. Can you imagine what could happen if all 230,000 eligible kids in every corner of the state were receiving a book every month?
The amazing thing about Dolly’s program is that it’s exactly how we like to do things here in Utah. It is analog, something you actually hold. In a season when we are all trying to pull our kids back from screens, a real book is monumental. It is family first, and for every family. It is early, starting at birth and reaching kids before reading becomes a problem instead of after. We are a build-the-fence-at-the-top-of-the-cliff kind of state.
The model is the kind of thing we do best. Communities raise their share, the state matches it, and neighbors, businesses, congregations and the Legislature each carry a corner of the same table. Working together, quietly, for the kids.
Dolly gave us the map. She spent 30 years proving it works, in red states and blue states, in urban cities and rural towns. With over 300 million books and counting, she did the hard part. She left us the easy part, to carry on her legacy and reach every Utah family.
I want us to lead out. I want Utah to be the state that answered a grieving family’s one request by making sure every baby born here, in every ZIP code, gets a book in the mail with their name on it. I want us to honor “the book lady” the way she honored her own father: by making sure the next kid never has to carry what her daddy carried.
Sister Oaks asked me what I was going to do. This is my answer. I would love it to be yours too.
Let’s finish what Dolly started.
To donate to Utah’s Imagination Library in Dolly’s memory, give online here.
To help bring Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library to every child 0-5 in Utah, sign the petition at operationliteracy.org/raisingreaders.