In 1995, through her Dollywood Foundation, Parton launched the Imagination Library in her home county of Sevier, in the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains. The idea was disarmingly simple. Any child enrolled would receive one carefully chosen, age-appropriate book in the post every single month, from birth until the age of five, addressed to them by name, and completely free regardless of what their family earned. The first order was for 1,760 books. Parton wanted children to fall in love with reading before they ever reached a classroom, and she wanted no family to be shut out by the cost. She also, tellingly, insisted the programme never be about her, telling children she was simply the Book Lady.
