Image: Unsplash As fans around the globe honour Dolly Parton’s rich musical legacy, we reflect on a different, and perhaps more profound legacy, her contribution to our understanding of the importance of providing books and reading with children. Away from the glitz and glamour of Dollywood and her biggest musical hits, Dolly Parton’s most profound gift to the world arrived quietly in the post every month.
Inspired by her own father’s inability to read or write, Dolly launched the Imagination Library in 1995. Her mission was simple; to mail a high-quality, age-appropriate book directly to the home of every child from birth to five years old, free of charge, giving each child their own library of 60 books.
On the 14th February 2019, Ireland became the fifth country in the world to adopt the free monthly book-gifting program for children under five when the National Childhood Development Initiative brough the Imagination Library to Ireland. Since the programme launched in 2019 approximately half a million books have been sent to young children in Dublin, Kildare and Cork. Internationally, over the last 30 years the Dolly Parton Imagination Library has distributed over 325 million books to young children and families in America, Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom and Ireland.
Why is this initiative so significant?
Getting a parcel addressed to them in the post is a magical experience for a young child. Getting a book represents something even more magical for children and families. As our research shows, gifting books to, and reading with young children functions as a form of relational pedagogy (Egan, Moloney, Pope, Breatnach & Hoyne, 2025). It is an invitation for parents to slow down, to be present with, sit with their child and engage in shared interactive reading (Moloney, Egan, Pope, Breatnach & Hoyne, 2026). Research tells us that this shared-reading time stimulates rapid early brain development, strengthening the emotional bond between parents and children and between educators and children (Hutton et al., 2015).
Dolly Parton’s legacy is the realisation that making books universally available to parents, children and educators helps to eliminate/reduce traditional barriers to literacy. Book gifting bypasses socioeconomic hurdles, helping to eliminate the stigma often attached to targeted interventions and parents and families take pride in building and using their libraries (Neyer et al., 2018). The presence of books in the home alters the home environment in subtle and profound ways and helps families develop traditions and routines around reading (Neyer et al., 2018). Importantly, through shared reading, parents recognise that they are their child’s very first, and most influential, educators.
A recent large scale international study (Galea et al., 2026) asked thousands of parents of children enrolled in the Imagination Library about their child’s emergent literacy skills. These skills include concepts related to alphabet knowledge, receptive vocabulary, expressive vocabulary, phonological awareness and phonological memory. The findings showed that children who had been involved in the library for a number of months were more likely to demonstrate emergent literacy skills, compared with those who had just enrolled and had not yet started receiving books. This study highlights one of the many benefits of the scheme, and of book gifting schemes more generally.
Book Gifting in Ireland
In Ireland our approach to book gifting in early childhood literacy has often relied on short-term, localized pilot schemes (Egan, Moloney, Pope, Breatnach & Hoyne, 2024). If we truly want to honour Dolly Parton’s legacy, enable young children to write their own futures, and build on our own evidence and that of others, we must build a sustained, nationwide infrastructure. The Irish Government has already taken some steps toward achieving this through the My Little Library Initiative, rolled out through local libraries, providing books free of charge to every child starting school.
However, it is essential that children nationwide receive books from the youngest age, not just when starting school and not just those living in certain local areas. We suggest that Ireland should:
- Establish a Universal National Book-Gifting Strategy: Every single child should automatically be enrolled at birth to receive a carefully selected book at regular intervals until they start primary school.
- Support, Not Just Deliver: Handing over a book is not enough. As our research suggests, book gifting is most effective when integrated with existing community networks. Public health nurses, local libraries, and early childhood educators play a vital role in supporting parents to engage in playful, interactive reading with their infants, toddlers and young children.
- Prioritise the Joy of Reading in Early Childhood: In keeping with Aistear, the Irish early childhood curriculum framework, reading in the early years must be championed as a joyful, play-based, experiential experience.
Dolly Parton once remarked that the seeds of a child's dreams are frequently found inside books. Our work on evaluating book gifting schemes and reading with young children in the home provides an evidence base to plant those seeds. By combining the inspiring, universal blueprint of Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library with the practical, evidence-based recommendations of early childhood researchers, Ireland can embark on a reading revolution, beginning in infancy. It would be the ultimate tribute to a legendary philanthropist, ensuring that every child in Ireland grows up with a library of their own, and the tools to write their own bright future.
By Dr Mary Moloney, Associate Professor in the Department of Reflective Pedagogy & Early Childhood Studies; Dr Suzanne Egan, Lecturer in the Department of Psychology ; and Dr Jennifer Pope, Lecturer in the Department of Reflective Pedagogy & Early Childhood Studies.
For further reading see:
Egan, S.M., Moloney, M., Pope, J., Breatnach, D. and Hoyne, C. (2024). It is a lovely gift to get from the public health nurse: Public Health Nurse Perspectives on Involvement in an Infant Book Gifting Scheme. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy.
Egan, S. M., Moloney, M., Pope, J., Breatnach, D., & Hoyne, C. (2025). From stories at bedtime to a love of reading: Parental practices and beliefs about reading with infants. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 25(1), 158-184.
Galea, C. et al. (2026) ‘The impact of shared book reading on children’s emergent literacy skills: a worldwide study of Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library’, Early Child Development and Care, 196(7–8), pp. 504–522. doi: 10.1080/03004430.2026.2678212.
Hutton, J. Tzipi Horowitz-Kraus, Alan L. Mendelsohn, Tom DeWitt, Scott K. Holland, the C-MIND Authorship Consortium; Home Reading Environment and Brain Activation in Preschool Children Listening to Stories. Pediatrics September 2015; 136 (3): 466–478. 10.1542/peds.2015-0359
Moloney, M., Egan, S., Pope, J. Breatnach, D. & Hoyne, C. (2026) The Effectiveness of an Infant Book Gifting Scheme in Supporting the Early Home Literacy Environment. Early Childhood Educ J (2026).
Neyer, S. L., Szumlas, G. A., & Vaughn, L. M. (2021). Beyond the numbers: Social and emotional benefits of participation in the Imagination Library home-based literacy programme. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 21(1), 60-81.
