Legacy of Imagination

Dolly Parton gave us all so much over the eight decades she was alive. A catalogue of masterpieces. Songs we cry to. Songs we dance to. Songs that woo you in with an upbeat tempo and soon have you singing along to a song that became a feminist anthem without Dolly ever even needing to use the “f” word.

Talk about a cup of ambition.

Indeed, so much of what Dolly wrote just became part of American culture: “Jolene,” “9 to 5, “Coat of Many Colors,” “I Will Always Love You”—the list of her songs that wound their way into our hearts feels almost endless.

But one of the most impactful and important contributions that Dolly wrote into existence wasn’t a song at all.

It was a library. In 1995, Dolly launched the Imagination Library in Sevier County, Tennessee, where she grew up. The inspiration was deeply personal. She launched it because of her own father, who never learned to read or write himself. She saw up close what that cost him. She saw a need. And she put her mind toward addressing that need.

She used her fame and her fortune to start putting books into the hands of children every single month. No qualifiers, no intake or application process, no requirements. Just a sweet, whimsical book every month, mailed to any child from birth to age five who wanted one.

Over 30 years later, Dolly Parton's Imagination Library operates across five countries and sends more than three million books every month to children around the world. The impact she has had on literacy around the globe is almost unquantifiable. And it was all born from her belief that books in the hands of children matter. Belief that imagination unlocks possibilities and futures.

Belief that somewhere inside a story a child might discover a world they didn't know existed or begin imagining a life they didn't know was possible.

There is something particularly fitting about that legacy coming from Dolly Parton.

For all the rhinestones, stages, movies, awards she was, at her core, a storyteller.

And great storytellers know that their stories can’t make an impact without an audience to receive them.

So that’s what Dolly did. She put 300 million stories into the hands of children all over the world, making sure those stories found an audience. Making sure kids had the opportunity to start a library of their own. Odds are, a lot of those kids have grown up now and become storytellers themselves.

It’s tough to imagine a more beautiful or impactful legacy.

At First Flight Books, we are fortunate enough to spend our days around writers, manuscripts, and people who believe in the power of storytelling.

We stand with Dolly in the belief that a well-crafted story that finds its audience can make the world a better place.