Dolly Parton is bringing her free book program to Utah

SALT LAKE CITY \u2014 Dolly Parton is teaming up with a Utah-based nonprofit, Operation Literacy, to provide free books to children across the state and help improve reading levels.Operation Literacy has reached a formal agreement with Parton's Imagination Library to become its official partner in Utah, pending approval from state lawmakers.In the meantime, Operation Literacy has launched a large-scale pilot of the program to "demonstrate demand and illustrate program impact," the organization said.Nearly half \u2014 or roughly 1 in 2 \u2014 students in Utah from kindergarten through third grade are not reading at grade level, according to a 2026 report from the Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute.Reading levels vary widely across the state. Less than 30% of third graders in Utah's Piute School District are reading at grade level, compared with more than 70% of third graders in the more affluent Park City School District, as previously reported by the Deseret News.Under the partnership, Imagination Library and Operation Literacy will launch the Raising Utah Readers initiative, which calls on Utah lawmakers to provide funding for free books and literary resources for children across the state."It's an honor to be involved with Dolly Parton's Imagination Library," said Aaron Hall, Operation Literacy's manager of public relations. "Dolly and her team have made colossal efforts to build a bright future through reading, and we couldn't be more thrilled to work with them in Utah going forward."Parton, an 11-time Grammy award winner, launched Imagination Library in 1995 to encourage children to develop a love of reading by providing them free books."When I was growing up in the hills of East Tennessee, I knew my dreams would come true," Parton said in a statement on the Imagination Library website. "I know there are children in your community with their own dreams. They dream of becoming a doctor or an inventor or a minister. Who knows, maybe there is a little girl whose dream is to be a writer and singer."She continued, "The seeds of these dreams are often found in books and the seeds you help plant in your community can grow across the world."Imagination Library has partnered with local community organizations in the U.S., Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia and the Republic of Ireland.More than 3 million children from birth to age 5 are currently registered for the program, which distributes over 3 million books each