Dolly Parton wants to give your child free books. Imagination Library now in Sacramento
All Sacramento children under 5 years old are now eligible to receive one free book in the mail each month thanks to Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library, which launched in Sacramento County this month.
Through the program, which was brought to the capital city in partnership with the nonprofit United Way and the Sacramento County Office of Education, families with children as young as newborns can gain access to both classic and new titles like “Corduroy,” “The Little Engine That Could” and “Where the Wild Things Are” in both English and Spanish.
The Imagination Library has been providing books to Yolo County families since 2018. In celebration of the program’s official launch in Sacramento County, United Way President and CEO Dawnté Early presented a Yolo County family with the 100,000th book given through the local iteration of the program: “Coat of Many Colors” written by Parton herself based on her beloved 1971 song.
Early presented the picture book to Amethyst Josephine Franco, 3, who has been receiving books monthly through the Imagination Library since she was 3 months old.
Amethyst’s grandmother, Danielle Whittenburg, found out about the book gifting program around four years ago when she was casually googling Parton, whose music she is a fan of. She signed up on behalf of her then 1-year-old grandson, Remus Lewis, and said the entire culture of reading in their family changed from then on.
“I love when they come up to me and ask me to read a book, not just at nighttime, but out of the blue,” Whittenburg said.
Remus, who is now 5, amazes his family by reading books on his own, a development which Whittenburg attributes in part to the Imagination Library. His favorites are Dr. Seuss books, which he still asks for his grandmother to read out loud because he giggles when her tongue “gets tied up and twisted” by all of the rhymes.
Amethyst’s favorite is the classic “Are You My Mother?” by P.D. Eastman, which her father likes to read to her in Spanish.
Whittenburg looks forward to reading “Coat of Many Colors” to her grandchildren, which is based on her favorite Parton song that she said always brings a tear to her eye.
Books for the children of Sacramento
Country musician, businesswoman and national treasure Dolly Parton is known globally for both her music and her philanthropy. This year is the 30th anniversary of The Dollywood Foundation’s Imagination Library, which first began providing high-quality, age-appropriate books to children in Tennessee. The regional program has grown to serve children internationally, and as of 2024, one in seven children under the age of 5 in the United States receives a book in the mail each month from the program.
Inspiring a love of reading at an early age can have broad implications for a child’s educational and economic future, which is why it is so important to invest in early literacy, Early said.
“United Way’s mission is to end poverty in the capital region,” Early said. “We do that by investing in kids and their education, and we want to go as far upstream as possible — starting from birth — giving them a love of reading and a love of literacy.”
The Sacramento County Office of Education recently launched an initiative in which they work with local school districts to ramp up focus on early literacy and bring up students who have fallen behind in reading.
Since successfully implementing the Imagination Library in Yolo County nearly a decade ago, Early said that they had been searching for ways to bring the program to the much larger Sacramento community without having to waitlist any families.
Funding provided from the California State Library, the Sacramento County Office of Education, local rotary clubs and the cities of Sacramento and Rancho Cordova allowed the book gifting program to launch, but program organizers are seeking $7.1 million in additional funding to make sure the 100,000 eligible kids in Sacramento County can all access the free books.
“I think of all the kids who are just starting their journeys, who are 6 months old, 18 months old, 2 years old, who are sitting there, holding on, clinging to, maybe even biting those thick page books, and what it means to them then, and what it means to their families and what it will mean down the road,” said Assemblymember Maggy Krell, D-Sacramento.
The Imagination Library is available to families in 45 of California’s 58 counties, including Sacramento, Yolo, Yuba, Sutter, El Dorado and San Joaquin counties. To find an affiliate, visit the Imagination Library’s interactive map (https://imaginationlibrary.com/usa/find-my-program/).
This story was originally published August 27, 2025 at 2:21 PM.
