Several U.S. states have cut or scaled back public support for Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library, threatening local book distributions. Missouri’s budget signed by Governor Mike Kehoe reduced the program’s state funding from $6 million to $2 million, a 67 percent cut. Tennessee is moving in the opposite direction, with officials saying the state will fully fund the Imagination Library statewide. The program has handed out hundreds of millions of books over the past 31 years and now serves large numbers of children in individual states, about 182,000 in California and more than 170,000 in New York. Local organizers and library groups are responding with petitions, fundraising drives, and calls for officials to restore support to avoid reductions in monthly book mailings to children. If state funding remains reduced, local affiliates will likely need to scale back enrollments or rely more heavily on private donations to maintain current distributions.
