Dolly Parton's Imagination Library of Douglas County

Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library is dedicated to inspiring a love of reading by gifting books free of charge to children from birth to age five, through funding shared by Dolly Parton and local community partners in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia and Republic of Ireland.
Inspired by her father’s inability to read and write Dolly started her Imagination Library in 1995 for the children within her home county. Today, her program spans five countries and gifts millions of free books each month to children around the world.

Locally, this grassroots effort began when a local mom found a used Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library book at a book sale. She wrote a message on a Facebook Moms’ group about starting up an Imagination Library in Douglas County, and then we were off and running! In March 2020, we began offering the program to Lawrence residents and were excited to expand to all of Douglas County in May. Our all-volunteer Leadership Committee is dedicated to increasing early childhood literacy. In the first five years of the program, we have served more than 5,600 children and mailed 133,000 books. Currently we send books to more than 2,500 children with new families enrolling every month. 

Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library is a book gifting program that mails free, high-quality books to children from birth to age five, no matter their family’s income. As the local affiliate, Dolly Parton's Imagination Library of Douglas County enrolls local children ages 0-5, promotes the program online and at events, and pays $1.30 per child per month towards wholesale book and mailing costs. Our local cost is matched by the Kansas Children's Cabinet.