Every child in a Blochairn Housing Association household will receive a free book each month until their fifth birthday after the Association signed up to the Dolly Parton Imagination Library.

In 1995, country singer Dolly Parton launched her Imagination Library for children in her home county in East Tennessee, USA. Dolly’s vision was to foster a love of reading among preschool children and their families by providing them with the gift of a specially selected book each month. She knew that books excite children and they feel the magic that books can create. She wanted to make sure that every child would have books, regardless of their family’s income.

Dolly was inspired to set up her Imagination Library as a tribute to her father, a hard working man who was unable to read or write. Dolly wanted to guarantee access to books to inspire a lifelong love of reading and help children to reach their full potential.

In 2000, Dolly made the program available to any community willing to partner with her and to support it locally. The Imagination Library has gone from just a few dozen books to over 60,000,000 books mailed to children in the United States, Canada and the UK. Over 1600 local communities provide the Imagination Library to over 750,000 children every month. There are 21,979 children registered in UK. Independent reports show that the Imagination Library helps young children to develop their reading skills before going to school.

Blochairn Housing Association has registered as a ‘Local Champion’ and will work with the Imagination Library to provide a book to every child, every month, from birth until their fifth birthday. The cost will be met by the Association and the Imagination Library and there will be no cost to the child’s family.

Every book is personally addressed to each individual child. A child enrolled at birth will build their own library of 60 books.

West of Scotland Housing Association (WSHA) became the first registered social landlord in Scotland to sign up to the innovative book gifting scheme in 2013 and re-launched the initiative last year.