How Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library, now more than 20 years old, is still encouraging children and families to read. By Annette Rawstrone

Dolly Parton may be a famed country music singer-songwriter, but she is also creating a reading legacy with an international children’s book gifting scheme.

Launched in 1995 in her home county of Sevier in East Tennessee, USA, Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library (DPIL) came to the UK in 2008 and has also spread to Canada and Australia. Her vision is to enable children to have access to books regardless of household income and to foster a love of reading among young children and their families by sending them a free book each month from birth to five years old. This means children build up a collection of up to 60 books by their fifth birthday.

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