Country music icon Dolly Parton will be reading books to kids on social media to help comfort them during the global coronavirus pandemic.
In an announcement posted on Facebook and YouTube, Parton said that she’ll read books on Thursday nights at 7 p.m. for the next ten weeks to provide kids “a welcomed distraction during a time of unrest.”
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The storybook readings will be broadcast on Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library YouTube channel, an initiative of the Dollywood Foundation to support youth literacy that gives books to children from low-income families.
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“Hi, I’m Dolly Parton, the Book Lady from the Imagination Library,” Parton said in the announcement video, sitting in a bed with her reading glasses. “I want you to join me April the second when I start ‘Goodnight with Dolly.’ We’ll be reading some stories from the Imagination Library.”
In a blog post, she said that she has “been wanting to do for quite a while, but the timing never felt quite right.”
“I think it is pretty clear that now is the time to share a story and to share some love,” Parton said. “It is an honor for me to share the incredible talent of these authors and illustrators. They make us smile, they make us laugh and they make us think.”
Some of the books that she’ll be reading will include The Little Engine that Could by Wally Piper, Anna Dewdney’s Llama Llama Red Pajama, and her own children’s book I am a Rainbow.
The readings will start this coming Thursday, April 2 and are “a personal gift from Dolly to all families. Free of charge but not free from obligation as the message will be to pass on the love and keep hope alive because we are all Together, You and I.”
