DeKalb County is Now Participating in Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library!

DeKalb County is now fully participating in Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library! The Imagination Library is Dolly Parton’s way of encouraging literacy in young children as a way to honor her father, who never learned to read. It provides free, high-quality books to children from birth until their fifth birthday, which are sent to them in the mail each month.

Thanks to generous donations from Lehan’s, DeKalb County Basics, Altrusa, the DeKalb County Community Foundation and private donors, the DeKalb Public Library and Friends of the DeKalb Public Library have been able to work with the Dollywood Foundation to offer the Imagination Library to our youngest community members. The DeKalb Public Library soft launched it at the World of Reading spring event on March 29th and has already registered nearly 1,000 children for the program—that’s almost 20% of eligible kids!

There are no restrictions on which children can join—anyone under 5 who lives in DeKalb County can register, and only basic information (birthdate, name, address, and parent’s email address) is required.

There will also be a kick-off celebration on Saturday, May 17th from 10-11 a.m. at the DeKalb Public Library. We’ll have some brief remarks followed by a story time, kids dance party, crafts, and cupcakes, and you can even take your picture with (cardboard-cutout) Dolly herself!

Quick points about the program:

1. Children will receive books up until the month of their 5th birthday. It takes 8-12 weeks to go from registering to getting your first book, so let people know there will be a bit of a wait at first.
2. The Dolly Parton Foundation pays for the actual books and almost all of the administrative costs. The community pays for shipping, which right now is being half-paid by the State. It works out to an average of about $1.10 per book per month after the State pays their half. The library is doing a small amount of administrative work registering children and correcting addresses each month.
3. Books are chosen based on birth year, so twins will get two copies of the same book.
4. Books are shipped when they’re ready, so some months they might come right at the beginning and some closer to the end, so two siblings might get their books on different days. As long as the child gets a book every month things are going correctly.
5. All kids in DeKalb County are eligible. Some of the County is covered by the Fox Valley United Way (Sandwich and Hinckley, a few other areas), and the rest by DKPL. That’s just for reference–it won’t matter to families because as long as they enter their zip code into the location finder it will tell them they are eligible.