The porch in Sevier County became the emotional center of a global literacy movement when Robert Lee Parton watched children run past with brand new books and felt the ache of his own illiteracy turn into pride.
Dolly Parton began the Imagination Library in 1995 as a deeply personal act of repair in rural East Tennessee. Each month one age appropriate book was mailed to every preschool child in Sevier County, and every parcel carried the child’s own name so the gift could feel like recognition rather than charity.
Robert Lee Parton was a sharp mountain farmer who lived in a world shaped by paperwork he could not read. Appalachian poverty kept him out of school, and he signed contracts with an inked thumb. Dolly grew up watching that quiet humiliation, and she wanted her community’s children to meet books early enough that the sting would never have to return.
Before he died in November 2000 at age 79, Robert Lee sat on the porch and saw neighborhood children clutching their monthly pages.
He told her that being known across the hills as The Book Lady brought him more pride than any award.
What began as a county promise grew through partnerships with community groups, school districts, and civic leaders. The program crossed into Canada in 2004, the United Kingdom in 2007, Australia in 2013, and Ireland, reaching families across thousands of zip codes.
Behind the expansion sits a careful annual process. A Blue Ribbon Book Selection Committee of early childhood literacy specialists, educators, and developmental psychologists curates titles with Penguin Random House. The first book is a custom edition of The Little Engine That Could, and the final title at age five is Look Out Kindergarten Here I Come.
Local affiliates keep the operation moving by funding postage, managing enrollments, and coordinating neighborhood outreach. In the foundation archives, decades of handwritten parent letters describe rural mothers learning alongside toddlers and working fathers sharing bedtime stories that their own parents could never give them.
In February 2018, Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden hosted Dolly in Washington D.C. for an official dedication ceremony. Dolly presented the foundation’s 100 millionth donated book, a special edition of Coat of Many Colors, for preservation in the national collection.
Today the Imagination Library has delivered more than 200 million volumes worldwide. The empire is remembered for its scale, yet its heart remains a daughter’s vow to turn a father’s hidden struggle into an open door for children.