Dolly Parton is a multimedia mega-star. She's sold millions of albums. Had 25 No. 1 hits. Starred in blockbuster movies. And she created the popular 150-acre theme park Dollywood in her native East Tennessee. But Parton is quick to point out that not one of those enviable achievements are what she considers her greatest - her "proudest" - accomplishment of all.
Without hesitation, Parton declares that the pinnacle of what she has done in her career is the creation and incredible success of her Imagination Library, which provides free books to children all over the world. So far, her brainchild has distributed more than 60 million books, with 750,000 books being distributed each month, reports The Boot.
"That's one of the things I'm proudest of, of anything I've ever done," she tells Southern Living magazine. "You can't educate enough children. A lot of that came from the fact that a lot of my own relatives didn't get to go to school because we were mountain people. You have to get out and work and help feed the family. My own dad couldn't read and write. And my dad was very proud of me. He got to live long enough to see the Imagination Library do well, so he felt like he had done something good too - that he was the inspiration for it."
The 68-year-old superstar never had children of her own but is a maternal influence on many, including her own nieces and nephews, as well as a godmother to Miley Cyrus. "I think probably I make a better godmother and an aunt than I would a mother because I was always so involved in my own things," she concedes.
"I really love kids. I love the energy of children. It makes me feel young. I'm just drawn to them. They're like magic to me. And they're drawn to me, the childlike part of me that never did grow up. I look kinda cartoonish and look like a Mother Goose or a Cinderella or a Fairy Godmother - kids kinda respond to that. Almost like a cartoon. And my voice is small. My energy is like that. I think it just works. And it's great for the Imagination Library."
