In 1996, Dolly Parton set up the Imagination Library in Sevier County, Tennessee, where she grew up. Free books – paid for through charitable donations – were sent out to poorer families to encourage reading and to improve literacy.

Parton’s own father grew up illiterate and she wanted to give others the opportunities he was denied. “Because if you can read, you can educate yourself,” she told CNBC in 2016. The initiative spread across the US and arrived in the UK in 2007 and then Australia in 2013. By February 2018, Imagination Library had given out its 100 millionth free book.

Responding to the coronavirus crisis, Parton has taken the love of reading online by setting up Goodnight With Dolly on the Imagination Library’s YouTube channel. The first episode, lasting nine minutes, went out on 2nd April where she read The Little Engine That Could.
“Hello, I’m Dolly Parton – the book lady from the Imagination Library,” she begins, sitting on her bed, reading spectacles on and book in hand. As she reads, the relevant pages with the text and illustrations appear on screen so that children can read along. It’s a simple idea but that doesn’t stop it being absolutely wonderful.

Back in October 2017, she appeared on Bedtime Stories on CBeebies (the BBC’s children’s channel) where a vast array of famous faces – including Rosamund Pike, David Hasselhoff and Josh Homme from Queens Of The Stone Age (yes, really) – all took turns to read stories for the young viewers.

“Encouraging children to develop a love of books from an early age is very important to me,” she said at the time. “I hope my songs and stories inspire the CBeebies audience.”

Goodnight With Dolly takes that idea and runs with it as she is an effusive and engaging reader.
This is not selling or marketing anything. Not that it should. It’s just another example of Parton’s altruism, philanthropy and all-round excellence.