Dolly Parton has been paraded through aisles of voters at Canterbury’s town meeting, hoisted like a saint in a processional. She has graced the town’s farmers markets, and for the last year and a half, she’s guarded the children’s room at the Elkins Public Library.
This rendering of Parton, who passed away on Tuesday, may be two-dimensional and made of cardboard, but it embodies the queen of country music’s special significance in town.
Canterbury is the only community in Merrimack County enrolled in Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library, the childhood literacy initiative Parton founded in 1995 in her own rural home county of Sevier County, Tennessee. During her lifetime, Parton donated more than 300 million free books to children across five countries through the initiative.
“She had the money to really facilitate it, and she had the attitude that, unabashedly, what she thought everyone needed was this, and she fought for it, and she paid for it, and we need more of that in our society,” said Library Director Rachel Baker.
Canterbury joined the Imagination Library in March 2025. Sixty-two children age 5 and under are currently enrolled in the initiative through the Elkins Public Library — around 80% of Canterbury’s infant and toddler population, according to Baker. Each child receives one book a month in the mail from Parton, addressed personally to them and tailored to their age group.
Households with more than one child receive a different title for each little one. The first book is always “The Little Engine That Could”; the final book a child receives the month they turn 5 years old is always “Look Out Kindergarten, Here I Come!”
A child enrolled at birth will receive 60 books from the Imagination Library, free of any cost to their family.
“What Dolly did is she did a lot to encourage literacy, but she also did a lot to encourage community,” Baker said. “We have these kids and families engaging because they get a book at home. They say, ‘I want more books,’ and the parents say, ‘Well, let’s go to the library. You can get as many books as you’d like.’ And what a wonderful thing in this day and age for a child to be that enthusiastic about books.”
Rachel Eades had been a new mother living in Northwood when she enrolled her three-month-old daughter through that town’s library. But two years ago, when she moved back to Canterbury, her hometown, the literary deliveries ended.
The town hadn’t yet partnered with the Imagination Library. Eades, through her advocacy, would be the one to change that.
“I selfishly wanted to keep getting the books for my daughter, so I looked into what was involved in starting up a program,” she said. “Because, what an amazing thing to do with your wealth, just to give it away in the form of free books to kids.”
The Dollywood Foundation, Parton’s nonprofit, fronts the cost of the books, but nonprofit partners must fundraise to defray the cost of shipping. Eades approached the Friends of the Elkins Library and volunteered to launch the program by recruiting donors, such as Delta Dental and Merrimack County Savings Bank, and getting the word out to parents.
Today, as program coordinator, she manages new registrations, validates enrollees’ addresses and answers questions parents might have about the program.
Another volunteer, the Friends’ treasurer, manages monthly shipping invoices. For a town of Canterbury’s size, the cost to operate the program totals about $2,000 a year.
When Eades’s daughter, now 3 years old, receives her book in the mail every month, the family soaks in the suspense of unveiling a new, surprising title and reads it at bedtime.
“I’d have to ask her whether Dolly, in her mind, is a real person or a mythical creature or an author,” Eades said. “I don’t know; I mean, she’s probably all those things. I’m sure she thinks it’s normal and thinks every kid gets a free book from a celebrity every month.”
In the last 24 hours, Eades said pages on the Imagination Library website haven’t loaded as instantly as she had come to expect. She’d like to believe the lag, although a small digital nuisance, is the sign of many good Samaritans moved by Parton’s passing to do good.
“I hope that’s because so many people around the globe are remembering Dolly by supporting the program,” she said.
