I love Dolly's Imagination Library!

I was in the children's room at the local library with the boys this summer when the librarian approached me with a brochure for Dolly Parton's Imagination Library.

I had never heard of the program, but the librarian explained that our local United Way had teamed up with Dolly Parton's Imagination Library to provide free books for children in our county. All I had to do was send the application in, and Jordan would start receving free books in the mail.

Well, it seemed too good to be true, but I'm thrilled to say it's not!

I went to the Imagination Library Web site, to see what it's all about.

Here are excerpts of the story of how it all came about:
"In 1996, Dolly Parton launched an exciting new effort to benefit the children of her home county in east Tennessee. Dolly wanted to foster a love of reading among her county’s preschool children and their families. She wanted children to be excited about books and to feel the magic that books can create. Moreover, she could insure that every child would have books, regardless of their family’s income.

So she decided to mail a brand new, age appropriate book each month to every child under 5 in Sevier County. With the arrival of every child’s first book, the classic The Little Engine That Could ™, every child could now experience the joy of finding their very own book in their mail box. These moments continue each month until the child turns 5—and in their very last month in the program they receive Look Out Kindergarten Here I Come.

...Many other communities clamored to provide the Imagination Library to their children... Consequently, in March of 2000 (Dolly) stood at the podium of The National Press Club in Washington, D.C. and revealed the plan for other communities to provide the Imagination Library to their children...

Here’s how it works:
A community must make the program accessible to all preschool children in their area. The community pays for the books and mailing, promotes the program, registers the children, and enters the information into the database.
From there The Dollywood Foundation takes over and manages the system to deliver the books to the home... Hundreds of communities are providing books to hundreds of thousands of children."

I strongly urge all you moms to pop over to the Imagination Library Web site and see if your community participates in this program (or call your local library. They might know.)

I feel very fortunate that the librarian chose to approach us and tell us about this program. It took a few weeks to get our application processed, but we have received a book in August, September, October and November so far and they are all wonderful, high-quality books. The boys absolutely love them!

Since Logan was already four, we didn't sign him up for the program. We decided we didn't really need to get two copies of all the books. I kind of wish we would have signed him up so he would get the kindergarten book in time but oh well. He is enjoying the books that come in Jordan's name, though. I sit down with both of them when we get a new book and we read it together.

Here are the books we have received.



You have nothing at all to lose and lots of great books to gain, so do a little investigating and see if Dolly's Imagination Library is available for your children! You won't regret it.

By the way, I wasn't compensated in any way by Dolly's Imagination Library for this post. They don't even know I'm writing it. I just think it's an awesome program.