Dolly Parton launches Goodnight with Dolly, an online bedtime story video series for children and families
Country music star Dolly Parton is launching a 10-week special bedtime story series for children called Goodnight with Dolly.
The new show aims to help children and families cope under self-isolation.
The read-aloud series will feature Parton reading stories from the Imagination Library books collection including Watty Piper's The Little Engine That Could.
The Little Engine That Could is celebrating its 90th anniversary and is currently the first book children in the U.S. and Canada receive when they sign up for Dolly Parton's Imagination Library.
The other books that will be featured in the series include Pass It On by Sophy Henn, Stand Tall Molly Lou Mellon by Patty Lovell, Violet the Pilot by Steve Breen, Last Stop on Market Street by Matt de la Peña and Parton's own books, I Am a Rainbow and Coat of Many Colors.
The series is an addition to Dolly Parton's Imagination Library, an initiative established in 1995 that mails free books to children from birth until they begin school.
"This is something I have been wanting to do for quite a while, but the timing never felt quite right. I think it is pretty clear that now is the time to share a story and to share some love," Parton said in a post on the Imagination Library website.
Parton's non-profit Dollywood Foundation gives thousands of books to American children through the program, which she initially set up to aid children in her home state of Tennessee.
Children get a new age-appropriate book each month until their fifth birthday, encouraging parents to read to them.
The weekly read-aloud series is set to launch on Thursday, April 2, 2020.
