Dolly Parton's Imagination Library
imaginationlibrary.comWith today's news, I thought I'd share this great program:
“When I was growing up in the hills of East Tennessee, I knew my dreams would come true. I know there are children in your community with their own dreams. They dream of becoming a doctor or an inventor or a minister. Who knows, maybe there is a little girl whose dream is to be a writer and singer.
The seeds of these dreams are often found in books and the seeds you help plant in your community can grow across the world.”
My daughter receives books through this program and I was curious how it was sustained at a $2.5/book wholesale cost.
Interestingly, the coordinating body that selects books, facilitates distribution, and negotiates wholesale pricing is the Dolly Parton Imagination Library, but per-book funding is actually entirely through local charities and so on. This means that where charities are unable to act as partners, children will not receive books, but it also means that the program can operate by growing and shrinking as local support (including from state and local government grants) comes online and goes offline while keeping the overhead for local partners low.
Dolly Parton came up with the initial local structure for her region in Tennessee and David Dotson of Dollywood scaled the operation using this decentralized model. Very impressive structure that makes this sustainable.
Here’s the interview where he talks about it: https://www.endbookdeserts.com/dolly-parton-imagination-libr...
Regarding cost per unit. I think the publisher likes this type of partner because they can really get their initial order volume up high without much risk. This allows them to have a super low cost per unit, maximizing profit, from the start.
Yup, and the “industry standard” wholesale discount publishers give to e.g. bookstores is usually 55%
That seems like an incredible discount. Can I assume then that bookstores are competing against each other via very minute (perhaps one or two dollar) price discounts while still maintaining a high profit margin?
I worked at a publisher back around 2010.
The unit cost for the publisher to put a $20 AUD book on a shelf in a book shop was about $2 AUD.
The bookstore kept quite a bit of that margin - $10 or so - but they had to pay rent & staff a store. If they were only selling $500 worth of books per day, it wouldn't have mattered if their margin was 100%, the fixed overheads would eat it all. If they could keep stock turning over quickly, the profits were impressive.
That makes sense to me. Thank you for that anecdote. I had no idea about these figures.
Really glad to see this as the top comment.
Parton did a lot of very nice things and was a great contributor to society in good and decent ways that many of her wealth peers totally fail.
But there has since her passing been an element of myth and folklore that has elevated those accomplishments beyond reality.
Her library is a great idea and her support was notable, but the funding in large part comes from government grants and other donors.
To a large degree, the library program is also your tax dollars at work.
Funding is easy to get once you have an impressive and demonstrably good program. But without Dolly's work (and yes, the work of people she brought on to carry out her vision), none of this program would currently exist.
Money is fuel, but it needs an engine. Dolly designed and built the engine.
Perhaps you can expand on why you think that is a bad idea.
This structure is (I would argue) a form of mutual aid. Alcoholics Anonymous famously operates under a similar structure. Mutual aid is very popular among Anarchists and is one of the most fundamental tactics of Anarchism, Food not Bombs probably being the most famous mutual aid movements that is explicitly Anarchists.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_aid
some governments provide funding -- Tennessee has been covering half the costs statewide
In Tennessee hospitals a nurse, staff member, or authorized volunteer will swing by your room in the mother-baby unit and sign you up. Then you start receiving free books by mail each month until age 5. An amazing program by an amazing person!
My 5 year old just got his last imagination library book. It showed up right after Dolly passed away.
There was a letter from Dolly to him that ended “I will always love you”. Made my wife tear up.
It really hits you in the feels. You get so used to receiving them and then all of a sudden it's a bit of a gut check and it reminds you your baby is growing up so fast. Plus the reminder of Dolly's kindness. Unexpected in what was just a simple trip to the mailbox.
We should be more ambitious with the people we build.
Exactly, noblesse oblige
We should celebrate people like Dolly and not people unworthy of celebration or celebrity.
Yes, it would be nice if people who make the world a better place would receive more attention and appreciation.
That's so hard though. I feel like she was a 1 in 1 like a lot of great people. Trying to draw a trend line feels impossible. Like ...
Not a lot of people in my lifetime (1975-present) have _no one_ bad-mouthing them. And I am sure there's someone out there bad-mouthing Dolly, but c'mon.
Well, the positive traits you listed are certainly true, but let’s face it: she was also very intelligent and had a self-deprecating sense of humor, so there’s that.
Oh I left super smart out, but the self deprecating I felt like I got with self-effacing ("It takes a lot of money to look this cheap" is Mae West level gag writing).
Yeah she checked a lot of boxes. But maybe the room made by no longer elevating the unworthy would shine a light on those who do.
These books are really nice quality. Anyone who has children should absolutely look into this. The content is thoughtful and diverse.
Many of the stories are good. The library also selects books that offer some stories reflecting diverse cultures.
Growing up in the 80s everything is white folks or animals but almost always it is about a boy or boys.
I think the baby books are still board books. Cordoroy’s Shapes is part of what I remember about our first’s earliest years. Reading it over and over. We even did a first birthday theme for it. My mom made triangle tarts.
After that they are floppy picture books. I suppose at this scale is is probably both economical and reflects some of the material involved.
That is just fine, though it’s just not the same as holding a hardcover.
Our kids don’t care about that, though. It’s more about the time and talking about the pictures and how well we ham it up.
Hamming it up is an overlooked parental contribution to reading. Lay it on thick! Do all the voices, act like you don’t know what’s on the next page, be shocked and surprised. Kids love it.
Even in the 70s when I was 8 or older I seem to remember plenty of series with girl protagonists like Nancy Drew or the Bobbsey Twins or The Dana Girls or Trixie Belden or even SF like Telzey Amberdon or even The Rolling Stones or Podkayne of Mars.
And, of course, there was the Oz books.
We use it and my son always screen “Dolly!” When we get to her picture in the back jacket. Wonderful service from one of the best Americans to have ever lived.
For jewish themed books, PJ Library is a similar good service
Unfortunately they support the existence of the state of Israel, so due to matters of conscience my wife and I had to skip PJ.
I have a two year old and have been receiving Imagination Library books monthly since he was born. This is a really wonderful non-profit. It's easy to sign up, the books show up in your mailbox, and each one has a page written by an educator describing how to read it to your child. (Point out the dog, what noise does a dog make? How does the boy feel at the end? etc) Highly recommend!
Honest question and maybe it's because I grew up without books… What values do books have if you cannot read? I started to learn how to read at 6. Are those picture only books?
Not to be snarky, yes picture books, but also, adults do often read books to children.
My parents never did. Now I wish they did.
Someone, typically a parent of guardian, reads them to you while showing you the words. After reading the story, they might go back and walk you through each word, how it's said, and its meaning.
Not only do a lot of kids learn like this, but for instance the little Polish that I know how to speak and read I learned like this as an adult with the help of a native speaker.
Oh wow. My parents never did this. I thought its something they only do in the movies…
Are you implying there’s a chicken-and-egg problem with books? How are you supposed to learn how to read without written material?
No. I am not implying a chicken and egg problem. If you generally start to learn how to read with 6 what would do get from a book between the age 0-5 when you cannot read? In another thread someone explained that usually parents "read" the book to the child - child answered my question. My parents never read books to me so I did not know this was common.
There's no reason to wait until a child is six to teach them to read. I was reading much earlier, before formal schooling, because my parents were readers and read to me regularly. I had a tremendous enthusiasm for books because books were important to my parents.
Plenty of research indicates reading to kids from a very young age improves their education outcomes later in life.
I'm sorry your parents didn't know to do that. Hopefully now that you know, you'll read to your kids (if/when you have any).
I don’t remember my father teaching me to read but he was an avid reader and I was reading well before six. When I in the third grade I won the library summer reading contest - I read all my books and all my sister’s books (she was in first grade) - I read like 60 books, my sister 20 and the high school winner ten :) We moved and had a bookmobile at our new location and I would get a paper grocery bag of books every week.
No they are not picture-only books. They have simple stories, which are for parents to read to their children. Reading stories to children before they can read is a very, very old tradition :) (think fairy tales)
(edit - you've gotten several responses but I will say that you are correct that this sort of thing does not happen in all households; that's one reason this program is great, because it encourages this behavior)
One of the best ways to help children learn to read is to read to them, a lot.
That alone won’t teach them to read, but it will help them a lot as they work through learning.
My kids have been “learning” to read since they were born and my oldest started reading on his own at age 4-5. I didn’t push him to read at all, he surprised me when he started telling me what the signs along the road said.
My younger hasn’t taken to it quite as fast but he’s right where he should be for his age, but we read at least three books to him every day at bedtime. I still read to my older one every day (we’ve read LotR twice), even though he’s plenty capable on his own.
We need more Dolly Partons.
What Dolly was doing here is a form of mutual aid, a practice of sharing skills, knowledge, food, or material goods with your community. I encourage everyone to participate in mutual aid organizations if you are able.
The world needs more Dolly Partons, that is for sure. But lucky for us, the world has many billions of people who are willing and able to participate in the sort of mutual aid that Dolly championed.
Yes, and we need them also in places like CEO of AI company, CEO of space company, CEO of twitter-style communications company, ...
Someone like Parton wouldnt take those positions
Probably because VCs don't want that ...
Getting books for almost 2 years now, we're so grateful to Dolly! Some very excellent books our child totally loves!
Dolly Parton was a beautiful spirit and my life was measurably improved by reading as a child so I donated $50 on her death. It's not much but I'm retired on a fixed income. I had to do something.
We weren't signed up but as a measure of the scale of this we still wound up with a couple of Imagination Library books through book exchanges or buying used online -- i.e. there are enough of these 300M books floating around that if you have a kid there's a good chance you run into them.
I like the sibling comment "We should be more ambitious with the people we build." -- there are so many great things people with some means can be doing!
We shall never look upon her like again.
—Sent from Dollywood
Hah I’m in Dollywood right now randomly
28.may.2023 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36100992 90 comments
Getting age-appropriate books for your kid on a regular schedule is amazing. If you've got young kids (and you're in the US) get on it!
We get them where I am in the UK, too.
Bless Dolly, she was amazing!
United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia and Ireland
I've been reading these books to my kids for the last year and a half. Such a wonderful gift to so many children.
Because of Dolly, other billionaires have stepped up to fund similar free books per month programs. She had a truly outsized impact.
If you know of any kids under the age of six get them signed up. The books come addressed in their name monthly.
What a fucking legend.
Curiosity is kino.
i never benefited from this, but I fucking love it. God speed Dolly! :*
PJ Library has a similar program for age 0-8. (I contacted them and they’re fine with non-Jewish families participating, even though it’s aimed at Jewish families and their children.)
Which "today's news" are you referring to?
I was confused by this too. Anyone?
Dolly Parton is the one of the few people and ideas that both polarized sides still fiercely agree on, and it says a lot given the times. Her book program and other charitable work is a great legacy.
Related on the legend RIP and some talk about the Library:
Dolly Parton has died
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49438052
Today's news being....
If you like coffee, Dolly has a line via Community Coffee (which makes great coffee) called Cup of Ambition, and a portion of each sale goes to the Imagination Library.
https://www.communitycoffee.com/pages/dolly-partons-cup-of-a...
My son was in this program and got some wonderful books. When he aged out he got a nice note encouraging him to keep learning. Great program. Our current billionaire class could learn a lot.