08/26/2026
📚❤️ Have a child under 5 in Gaston County? Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library can help fill their bookshelf!
As we remember Dolly Parton, I pulled out the books her Imagination Library sent our family years ago. Seeing them all together really brings home what a beautiful legacy she created for children and families.
Books have always been a big part of our home. When my son was a toddler, our family library got a big jump-start with one of those listings of a Huge Lot of Children's Books on eBay. I paid about $100 for roughly 100 books, including shipping, and loved the variety we got.
There were a couple of small sets mixed in, including Clifford the Big Red Dog and The Magic School Bus. Those weren't my favorites to read aloud, so I listed the sets separately on eBay. They sold right away, and we made room for more books I enjoyed reading with my son.
Then, the year my son started preschool and my daughter had just been born, I learned about Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library through a Moms of Preschoolers group and enrolled both of them.
📬 Once a month, both of my kids received their own book in the mail, selected for their age. Each book came wrapped in clear plastic with a mailing label addressed right to each of them.
They looked forward to discovering what new story had arrived. ❤️
And the variety was incredible.
Based on the years they participated, they potentially received around 72 books altogether. Looking through what we still have, I can only identify about three duplicate titles. That's roughly 96% different books. 📚
Even those few duplicates arrived at different times, so they weren't receiving the same book in the same month.
That's one of the things I appreciate most looking back. The Imagination Library added so much variety to the books we were already collecting and reading together.
Some of these are books we may never have picked out ourselves. Instead, they showed up at our door and introduced us to new authors, illustrators, characters, subjects and stories.
And we continued adding books to our family library along the way through consignment finds, Scholastic book orders through school and chapter books as the kids grew.
📚 Today, I can still count around 50 Imagination Library books in our collection.
We've passed some along for other children to enjoy over the years, but we've held onto a lot of them.
Looking through these photos reminds me how many good books the program introduced us to.
I love Little Cub, Excellent Ed, The Gingerbread Man Loose on the Fire Truck, Corduroy, The Gruffalo, Ten Thank-You Letters and Little Poems for Tiny Ears. My No, No, No Day! is another memorable one because I'm sure we've all had a few of those days. ❤️
There are sweet books, funny books, poetry, classics, bilingual stories and books with meaningful messages. Some became favorites, and others simply gave us something completely different to read.
But the best part of having all those books was never just filling a bookshelf.
It was the time we spent reading them together. ❤️📖
We've been reading together at bedtime since they were little.
Of course, it wasn't always a perfectly peaceful story time. When my daughter was a baby, she was so wiggly that reading to her could be a challenge! But we kept reading, and it became part of our nighttime routine.
As they grew, they were the ones asking me to read to them at night.
Sometimes reading is simply part of settling down and getting ready to sleep. But it's also that little bit of time together at the end of the day.
Kids' days get busy. They're at school, playing with friends, involved in activities and doing their own things. That time before bed may be one of the few times all day when they have your undivided attention.
They hear your voice and your inflection as you read, and you're sitting together sharing the same story without all the other distractions of the day.
And the parent gets something out of that time, too.
I've genuinely enjoyed so many of the children's books I've read over the years. A children's book can be funny, touching, beautifully illustrated or have a message that means something to the adult reading it, too.
The kinds of books we read have changed as my kids have grown, but story time has stayed.
A few years ago, I asked my kids what one of their favorite things about me was.
Their answer?
That I read to them. ❤️
That has always stuck with me.
What can seem like a simple bedtime routine to a parent can become something your child remembers as time you gave just to them.
So when I look at these books Dolly helped put into our family library, I don't just see books that arrived in the mail.
I see time together.
Bedtime stories. Favorite characters. Books we might never have discovered otherwise. New things learned. Conversations started by a story. A love of reading and learning. And memories made one book at a time.
Maybe someday I'll get to pull some of these same Dolly books off the shelf and read them to my grandchildren. ❤️📚
I love the thought that a book Dolly helped put into our home years ago could become part of story time for another generation.
What a beautiful legacy Dolly Parton created. ❤️
And families right here in Gaston County can still be part of it.
If you have a child under 5, you can register them for Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library to receive a book selected for their age in the mail once a month at no cost to your family.
📌 We'll put the registration information and printable form in the comments.
If you don't have access to a printer, we'll also keep a few printed copies at Otis’ Merchandise Gallery for anyone who would like one.
Please share this with a Gaston County parent, grandparent or caregiver with a little one under 5.
Dolly's gift wasn't only putting books into children's hands. It introduced families to stories they might never have discovered otherwise and gave them something new to sit down and experience together. ❤️📚
