Melissa Goodnight

I had no idea about Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library until Jackson was a month old and a book arrived in the mail. At that time (I’m not sure how it works now) any child born in Taney County, Missouri was automatically signed up for the program because Taney County is home to Dolly’s Stampede. (It was Dolly’s Dixie Stampede back then, but she changed the name when it was brought to her attention that the term “Dixie” has confederate connotations.)

The most amazing thing was that every month after, for the next five years, a couple of moves (even a cross-country one) those books made it to my child, who in turn gobbled them up. He was reading by the time he was three.

I know because I believe in the power of reading, my child would have had books regardless. (We were big library patrons as well.) And I know that my child would have been a good reader because of it, but the excitement my three-year-old had once a month when he got a new book in the mail was palpable. It was a special gift addressed to him!

In those early years there were multiple homes that I went into in and around Branson, as Jackson and I made friends, that I noticed the only books in the home were stickered with the Imagination Library’s unmistakable logo. And Jackson would see them, recognize them, then his friend’s would proudly parade their books around and explain that they came in the mail just for them. The excitement!

Listen, I know a lot of you didn’t grow up like I did. Many of you had two parents at home, money for things like books and toys, lots of opportunity. But I come from a time, place, and home where money was thin and times were often tough. Not because my momma didn’t work or try her hardest. Still, you sometimes feel as a child unlucky. Like no one cares about you. Quietly slipping through the cracks.

Those books are more than a direct line to a brighter, broader world. They are the reminder to each child that someone, some woman named Dolly out there in the world, cares about them and thinks they deserve a gift. And shit, couldn’t we all use that occasionally?

If you have the means today please donate to Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library or make it a regular donation spot to add to your list. You have no idea how valuable it is.

M.