Are you looking for ways to foster a love of reading in your young children? The Dolly Parton Imagination Library can help! The organization distributes high-quality books to children from birth to age 5 completely free of charge.
Originally started in 1995, the program began serving young children in Dolly’s home county in Tennessee before expanding across the country and the world. To sign your children up for the program, visit imaginationlibrary.com to fill out the registration form. There are no income requirements to sign up and the program is open to all children aged 5 and under. While you must be a child’s legal guardian to sign them up, we’d love for you to help spread the word to your friends and neighbors with young children! If you’d like to help support this program yourself, you can also make a one-time or monthly donation at donate.imaginationlibrary.com.
Your child will begin to receive monthly, age-appropriate books a few weeks after being accepted into the program. The book you’ll receive each month is selected by an early childhood expert, based on your child’s age. For example, a one-year-old child may receive a bright, colorful board book with minimal text while a three-year-old may receive a book teaching the concepts of colors, numbers and letters. The organization also has some bilingual book options, as well as audiobooks and braille titles. You can see the books featured in 2022 by visiting imaginationlibrary.com/usa/booklist.
As a partner of the Dolly Parton Imagination Library, Touchstone Energy Cooperatives and Piedmont Electric Cooperative are committed to helping spread the word about this free program to the youngest members of electric cooperatives across our communities. We thank the state legislature for funding this program and making it available to North Carolinians free of charge, and we encourage you to take advantage of this amazing literacy program today!