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Dolly Parton died Aug. 25 at age 80, but the program she built in her father’s memory will keep mailing a free book every month to more than 1,000 Baxter County children.
Since the Dolly Parton Imagination Library of Baxter County launched in March 2019, more than 75,000 free books have gone to local kids, and 1,592 children have graduated from the program. Today 1,074 children are enrolled, about 61% of every child in the county from birth to age 5.
That is well ahead of the state as a whole. Arkansas Imagination Library reports more than 82,000 children enrolled statewide, roughly 45% of Arkansas kids under 5.
Families pay nothing. Each enrolled child gets an age-appropriate book in the mail every month from birth until their fifth birthday, starting with a personalized copy of “The Little Engine That Could.”
The Dollywood Foundation pays half the cost of every book. A grant from the Dolly Parton Imagination Library of Arkansas covers another quarter, and the local affiliate, the Baxter County Library Foundation, pays the rest through donations from community members.
“One of the most important things a parent can do for their child is read aloud to them regularly,” said Kim Crow Sheaner, director of the Donald W. Reynolds Library Serving Baxter County. “Hearing that vocabulary, being able to comprehend those stories, prepares a child to learn to read like nothing else.”
The local program is run through the Baxter County Early Literacy Project, an effort led by the Baxter County Library in partnership with area schools. Its mission is to make sure every child in the county has the early literacy skills needed to walk into kindergarten ready to learn.
The project also runs 1,000 Books Before Kindergarten, which challenges families to log a thousand read-alouds before school starts, and a network of 13 Little Free Libraries stocked with free children’s books. Those boxes sit at parks, apartment complexes, the community center and other spots from Cotter to Norfork.
Partners include the Arkansas Community Foundation Twin Lakes, Arkansas State University-Mountain Home, Baxter Health’s Schliemann Center for Women’s Health, the Mountain Home, Cotter and Norfork school districts, Mountain Home Christian Academy, the Twin Lakes Literacy Council and the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture extension office.
The Observer reported in June 2025 that the county had passed the 60% enrollment mark. The library has set a goal of 65%.
Research backs the effort. A study by Dr. Claire Galea of United Way Australia surveyed more than 86,000 caregivers in five countries, the largest dataset ever collected on shared book reading. After just 10 books, children in the program were at least four times more likely to show stronger early literacy skills such as vocabulary, and nine times more likely to be read to four or more days a week.
Closer to home, the Arkansas Research Center at the University of Central Arkansas compared kindergarten readiness scores for enrolled and unenrolled children. Enrolled kids performed 5% to 10% better, with the biggest gains among low-income families. They were also 24% less likely to be held back in kindergarten and 28% less likely to be held back in third grade, according to Arkansas Imagination Library’s 2025 annual report.
Parton was born Jan. 19, 1946, in Sevier County, Tennessee, one of 12 children raised in poverty in the Great Smoky Mountains. She left for Nashville the day after high school graduation and became one of the best-selling artists in music history, with more than 100 million records sold and hits like “Jolene,” “9 to 5” and “I Will Always Love You.”
Her giving started at home. She created the Dollywood Foundation in 1988 to raise the high school graduation rate in Sevier County, and two years later launched the Buddy Program, which promised $500 to every seventh and eighth grader who finished school.
The Imagination Library came in 1995, and it was personal. Parton’s father, Robert Lee Parton, never learned to read or write, and she often said his illiteracy kept a wise and hardworking man from seeing his dreams come true. The first book order that year was just over 1,700 copies.
The program now mails more than 3 million books a month across the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia and Ireland. It has given away more than 332 million books, and the Library of Congress honored Parton as a titan of children’s literacy. Her father took pride in hearing kids call her “The Book Lady,” and before he died he told her the Imagination Library was probably the most important thing she had ever done.
Her generosity went well beyond books. After wildfires tore through Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge in 2016, her My People Fund paid about 900 families who lost their homes $1,000 a month for six months, $12.5 million in all. In 2020 she gave $1 million to Vanderbilt University Medical Center for COVID-19 research that helped fund early work on Moderna’s vaccine.
Arkansas has a special place in that story. The Imagination Library first reached the state in 2005 through local volunteers, and Arkansas became the third state in the nation to build a statewide program. Parton promised she would visit if the books reached every county, and on May 5, 2022, she kept her word at the Governor’s Mansion in Little Rock to celebrate coverage in all 75 counties.
At the time of that visit, 59,000 Arkansas children were enrolled and about 3 million books had been delivered statewide. Those numbers have since grown to more than 82,000 children and 7 million books, with 140,000 Arkansas 5-year-olds graduating from the program.
Parton died at Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center in Nashville after what her publicist called a brief battle with cancer. Her husband of nearly 60 years, Carl Dean, died in March 2025. Flags flew at half-staff nationwide for a week, and her family asked that donations go to the Imagination Library in place of flowers.
“Dolly established the Dolly Parton Imagination Library to make sure that children have the opportunity to have plenty of high-quality books at home just for that purpose,” Crow Sheaner said. “What an amazing lady and what an impact she has made on countless young lives.”
Baxter County families can enroll a child at ArkansasImaginationLibrary.org. The first book arrives in six to eight weeks, and the books keep coming until the child turns 5.
To learn more or support the Early Literacy Project, call (870) 580-0979, email [email protected] or visit BaxLib.org/Early-Literacy-Project.
