Yet another Hacker News

121 points jumploops 1 hour ago 22 comments

With today's news, I thought I'd share this great program:

“When I was growing up in the hills of East Tennessee, I knew my dreams would come true. 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.

The seeds of these dreams are often found in books and the seeds you help plant in your community can grow across the world.”

dead_hn_theory 1 hour ago | parent

We should be more ambitious with the people we build.

PLenz 31 minutes ago | parent

Exactly, noblesse oblige

eddieroger 30 minutes ago | parent

We should celebrate people like Dolly and not people unworthy of celebration or celebrity.

argentinian 20 minutes ago | parent

Yes, it would be nice if people who make the world a better place would receive more attention and appreciation.

TheAtomic 1 hour ago | parent

We need more Dolly Partons.

delichon 44 minutes ago | parent

They broke the mold.

runarberg 28 minutes ago | parent

What Dolly was doing here is a form of mutual aid, a practice of sharing skills, knowledge, food, or material goods with your community. I encourage everyone to participate in mutual aid organizations if you are able.

The world needs more Dolly Partons, that is for sure. But lucky for us, the world has many billions of people who are willing and able to participate in the sort of mutual aid that Dolly championed.

turtleburger 1 hour ago | parent

These books are really nice quality. Anyone who has children should absolutely look into this. The content is thoughtful and diverse.

bredren 32 minutes ago | parent

Many of the stories are good. The library also selects books that offer some stories reflecting diverse cultures.

Growing up in the 80s everything is white folks or animals but almost always it is about a boy or boys.

I think the baby books are still board books. Cordoroy’s Shapes is part of what I remember about our first’s earliest years. Reading it over and over. We even did a first birthday theme for it. My mom made triangle tarts.

After that they are floppy picture books. I suppose at this scale is is probably both economical and reflects some of the material involved.

That is just fine, though it’s just not the same as holding a hardcover.

Our kids don’t care about that, though. It’s more about the time and talking about the pictures and how well we ham it up.

hudo 59 minutes ago | parent

Getting books for almost 2 years now, we're so grateful to Dolly! Some very excellent books our child totally loves!

HelloUsername 55 minutes ago | parent

28.may.2023 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36100992 90 comments

ChrisArchitect 53 minutes ago | parent

Related on the legend RIP and some talk about the Library:

Dolly Parton has died

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49438052

Projectiboga 51 minutes ago | parent

If you know of any kids under the age of six get them signed up. The books come addressed in their name monthly.

peterleiser 44 minutes ago | parent

In Tennessee hospitals a nurse, staff member, or authorized volunteer will swing by your room in the mother-baby unit and sign you up. Then you start receiving free books by mail each month until age 5. An amazing program by an amazing person!

Vsolar 44 minutes ago | parent

Getting age-appropriate books for your kid on a regular schedule is amazing. If you've got young kids (and you're in the US) get on it!

nkoren 36 minutes ago | parent

We get them where I am in the UK, too.

Bless Dolly, she was amazing!

afthonos 36 minutes ago | parent

We shall never look upon her like again.

—Sent from Dollywood

brianwawok 30 minutes ago | parent

Hah I’m in Dollywood right now randomly

bushbaba 27 minutes ago | parent

Because of Dolly, other billionaires have stepped up to fund similar free books per month programs. She had a truly outsized impact.

twotwotwo 23 minutes ago | parent

We weren't signed up but as a measure of the scale of this we still wound up with a couple of Imagination Library books through book exchanges or buying used online -- i.e. there are enough of these 300M books floating around that if you have a kid there's a good chance you run into them.

I like the sibling comment "We should be more ambitious with the people we build." -- there are so many great things people with some means can be doing!

bengotow 14 minutes ago | parent

I have a two year old and have been receiving Imagination Library books monthly since he was born. This is a really wonderful non-profit. It's easy to sign up, the books show up in your mailbox, and each one has a page written by an educator describing how to read it to your child. (Point out the dog, what noise does a dog make? How does the boy feel at the end? etc) Highly recommend!

arjie 8 minutes ago | parent

My daughter receives books through this program and I was curious how it was sustained at a $2.5/book wholesale cost.

Interestingly, the coordinating body that selects books, facilitates distribution, and negotiates wholesale pricing is the Dolly Parton Imagination Library, but per-book funding is actually entirely through local charities and so on. This means that where charities are unable to act as partners, children will not receive books, but it also means that the program can operate by growing and shrinking as local support (including from state and local government grants) comes online and goes offline while keeping the overhead for local partners low.

Dolly Parton came up with the initial local structure for her region in Tennessee and David Dotson of Dollywood scaled the operation using this decentralized model. Very impressive structure that makes this sustainable.

Here’s the interview where he talks about it: https://www.endbookdeserts.com/dolly-parton-imagination-libr...