Cottonwood Heights families with children under 5 can sign up to receive a free book every month through Dolly Parton's Imagination Library.

Canyons School District and the Canyons Education Foundation announced the program Friday, Sept. 25, at a morning reading event at Glacier Hills Elementary. Preschool-aged children and their caregivers gathered in the school library for stories before receiving their first books. The district dubbed the event "Dolly Day," holding it at precisely 9:25 a.m.

The program mails one age-appropriate book per month to registered children from birth until their fifth birthday. A child enrolled at birth would receive 60 books by age 5. There is no cost to families.

Canyons is the largest school district in Utah to offer the program districtwide, according to Canyons Education Foundation President Quinn Sperry.

"We are reaching children before they enroll in our schools and helping families build a foundation for literacy from birth," Superintendent McKay Robinson said at the event. Robinson said raising a reader starts at home, when a parent reads one more story at bedtime or a grandparent shares a favorite book.

The initiative is funded through donations to the Canyons Education Foundation, the district's nonprofit fundraising arm, in partnership with Utah-based Operation Literacy's Raising Readers program. Sperry said the Foundation is committed to raising the funds needed to keep the program running, though no specific fundraising target or timeline has been announced.

Eligible families live within Canyons District boundaries, which include Cottonwood Heights, Draper, Midvale, Sandy and the townships of Alta, Brighton and White City.

The late Dolly Parton launched the Imagination Library in 1995 as a tribute to her father, who never learned to read or write. The program has grown over three decades to reach more than 3 million children worldwide, according to the district. It gifts more than 3 million books per month to registered children, according to Education Week. Parton died in August 2026 at age 80.

State and city elected officials attended Friday's announcement, which Sperry said aligned with Utah's broader push to prioritize early literacy.

Families can register at imaginationlibrary.com/check-availability/.