Introduction
Dolly Parton Backs Our Campaign: “If Only Daddy Had Learned to Read”
In a world that feels increasingly loud, rushed, and disposable, Dolly Parton has chosen to stand for something quietly radical: a parent’s lap, a child’s curiosity, and a book opened slowly, page by page.
Long before the glitter, the stadium tours, and the title Queen of Country, Dolly was one of twelve children growing up in a small one-room cabin in Tennessee. There were no shelves of books. Often, there was only one—the family Bible. And woven into those early memories is a truth she has never shaken: the man she called the smartest person she ever knew, her father Robert Lee, could not read or write. Not because he lacked intelligence. But because opportunity never arrived.
That quiet injustice—what might have been, if only he had access to words—became a lifelong calling.
Out of it grew the Imagination Library, built on a promise as simple as it is powerful: from birth to age five, a child receives a free book every month. No applications. No tests. No judgment. Just a steady reminder that stories belong to everyone.
In the UK, that promise has been unfolding since 2007. More than seven million books have quietly crossed doorsteps and kitchen tables, landing in homes month after month. The numbers matter—but the moments matter more: a tired parent reading aloud at bedtime, a child tracing letters with their finger, families discovering that reading isn’t a school task but a shared rhythm of life.
Now, Dolly is lending her voice to The Sunday Times Get Britain Reading campaign, encouraging families to rebuild a daily reading habit—just ten minutes a day, for six weeks, purely for pleasure. Not as homework. Not as pressure. But as refuge. As connection. As something steady in a fast-moving world.
When Dolly speaks about her father, it doesn’t sound like celebrity messaging. It sounds like a daughter still grieving a door that never opened. She has said the programme is a tribute to him—and that his inability to read may have kept him from reaching his full potential. It’s a sentence that doesn’t blame. It simply mourns. And in doing so, it resonates with countless families who know how easily talent can be limited by circumstance.
The programme itself is deliberately practical. UK families register, receive a first book—often a classic like The Tale of Peter Rabbit—followed by carefully chosen, age-appropriate titles curated with partners such as Penguin Random House. Local organisations support delivery, while the Dollywood Foundation covers administration, keeping the model sustainable and scalable.
And there is evidence behind the hope. Research involving tens of thousands of parents across several countries shows children in the programme are significantly more likely to read independently. That matters—because independent reading is not just a skill. It’s confidence. It’s a child believing they can make sense of the world on their own.
This campaign arrives at a fragile cultural moment. Data from the National Literacy Trust suggests only around one in three young people say they enjoy reading in their free time. The concern is not just about literacy—but about attention, empathy, and inner life.
Dolly isn’t offering a trend or a shortcut. She’s offering continuity. The same faith, patience, and belief in stories that shaped her childhood—now extended outward as public care.
Get Britain Reading is not really about famous names, even though supporters include figures from music, sport, and literature. It’s about restoring reading as everyday family life.
One book won’t fix every inequality.
But it can place possibility in a child’s hands.
And sometimes, that’s how change begins—not with a speech, but in a living room, when someone says quietly, “Come here. Let me read this to you.”