Dolly Parton launched a free-book programme in Tennessee in 1995; 30 years later, it has gifted nearly 300 million books to children

Dolly Parton launched the Imagination Library in 1995 to help children in her home county of Sevier County, Tennessee, access books from an early age. Inspired by her father, Robert Lee Parton, who never learned to read or write, the country music star created a programme that mails free, age-appropriate books to enrolled children from birth until they turn five. Over three decades, the initiative expanded beyond Tennessee to reach communities across the United States and other countries.

According to the supplied programme fact sheet, the Imagination Library has distributed more than 300…