Selby joins Dolly Parton’s global literacy network posthumously
Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library will launch in Selby, North Yorkshire, as part of a £400,000 regional initiative to boost early childhood literacy. The program, which sends free monthly books to children from birth to age five, is being introduced two months after the country music star’s death. It is one of two pilot projects funded by the York and North Yorkshire Combined Authority, alongside a Finnish-style baby box scheme in Scarborough. Local officials emphasized the long-term cognitive and linguistic benefits of shared reading, noting that the scheme has already distributed over 330 million books globally since its 2007 UK launch in Rotherham.
