Imagine The Possibilities Big Z. Little z. What begins with Z? I do. I am a Zizzer-Zazzer-Zuzz as you can plainly see.

Half asleep, I contemplated staying the night in my daughter’s rocking chair. I peeked to see if she’s fallen asleep. “Again, Daddy!” she says, wide-eyed and very awake. “But this time, do the voices!” 

For the better part of a year, my three-year-old daughter wouldn’t go to sleep without me reading her Dr. Seuss’s ABC: An Amazing Alphabet Book every single night. Twice. 

I memorized each page’s words verbatim. I started timing myself from cover to cover, adding deductions for stumbled words. No easy task with the Seussian tongue-twisters and preposterous propositions in every pentameter. 

Painting pink pajamas. Policeman in a pail. Peter Pepper’s puppy. And now Papa’s in the pail.

The book is one of many classic children’s titles that have been distributed to more than three million children around the world by Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library. For all the light and love and song that Dolly brought into this world, this global gift may be the most inspiring.

Dolly began the Imagination Library in 1995, gifting free books to all children from birth to age five in her native Sevier County in East Tennessee. After more than 30 years and 330 million books later, the program continues to mail one classic story each month to every kid who signs up—all for free.

Until I became a dad, I had forgotten the importance of reading for fun and, maybe more importantly, being read to. As a kid, my favorite was Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak, and I marveled at the terrible claws and terrible teeth, imagining I could go anywhere and be back home by dinner.

But credit to my wife, who had our first daughter’s little library ready for her the day we got home from the hospital. (Dad had less luck with the crib.) Barely able to open her eyes, we read her first book, Goodnight Moon, and made it a habit ever since.

We pretended to eat everything page by page in Eric Carle’s The Very Hungry Caterpillar, recited Love You Forever by Robert Munsch every time we got scared, and ensured we Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus by Mo Willems despite all his convincing.

One of the things I’m most proud of is the love my three girls have for reading. The passion for going on an adventure without limitations and screens. And the excitement to do it every night before dreaming.  

BIG I. Little i. Ichabod is itchy. So am I.

Not all families, though, have the means for new or even used books. And that’s where the Imagination Library is truly impacting the lives and futures of kids across the globe.

In the US, specifically, one in every six children under the age of five has received one of Dolly’s books, mailed and delivered with their name. 

Unfortunately, funding that supports the program in many states is being cut and disproportionately affecting the underserved families that need the books the most. Both research and common sense underline the foundational importance of literacy, and we need more programs like Dolly’s, not fewer.

Now thinking back on all the stories we shared every night, I realize the impact they had on my own life a second time around. We read The Night Before My Birthday by Joni Rubinstein to celebrate everyone’s milestone, complete with writing down goals for the year. 

Look Out Kindergarten, Here I Come! by Nancy Carlson helped us all get through that scary first week of school. If You Give A Mouse a Cookie by Laura Joffe Numeroff taught me the patience needed to be a dad. And Seuss’s lessons on how we all should treat the environment in The Lorax may be more relevant than ever. 

Dolly was inspired to start the Imagination Library by her father, who never learned to read or write. Her impact on the lives of children and their parents, in turn, is immeasurable and these classic books represent just another way to remember her legacy.

O is very useful. You use it when you say: “Oscar’s only ostrich oiled an orange owl today.”

The book still makes an occasional appearance on the bookshelf. Its tattered pages have started to loosen on the binding, but the words are the same. My daughter is in second grade now, and has mastered every line herself. 

But every once in a while, she’ll hand it over to me. 

“Daddy, do the voices!”

And I always do.

Thanks to First 5 Monterey County and local partners, children from birth to age five can receive a book each month. For more info: first5monterey.org/imaginationlibrary/