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.
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!
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.
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 ...
- amazing voice
- amazing songwriter
- talented actress
- an icon for attractiveness in the 80s who was self-effacing about it
- embraced her fans of all kinds (imagine someone born when she was being so comfortable with people of all races and stripes)
- just a permanently positive force
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.
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!
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!
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.
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.
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...
There was a letter from Dolly to him that ended “I will always love you”. Made my wife tear up.
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.
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!
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.
—Sent from Dollywood
Bless Dolly, she was amazing!
https://www.communitycoffee.com/pages/dolly-partons-cup-of-a...
Dolly Parton has died
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49438052