Dolly Parton Will Read You (or Your Children) a Bedtime Story

The new "Goodnight With Dolly" series hopes to help soothe children's coronavirus anxieties

goodnight with dolly
I want Dolly Parton to narrate my life.
Instagram/@dollyparton

World’s Best Human in Residence Dolly Parton is now available to read your children a bedtime story.

Starting Thursday, the country music legend will read children’s stories aloud in a new online series called “Goodnight with Dolly” to help soothe and entertain anxious children (and weary parents) amid the coronavirus pandemic.

“This is something I have been wanting to do for quite a while, but the timing never felt quite right,” Parton said in a statement announcing the new series. “I think it is pretty clear that now is the time to share a story and to share some love.”

Each week, Parton will read a selection from the Imagination Library, a book-gifting program the star launched in 1995 that distributes free books to children. Selections for the 10-week “Goodnight with Dolly” series will feature Parton’s own contributions to the children’s literary canon, Coat of Many Colors and I Am a Rainbow, as well as other children’s classics including, There’s a Hole in the Log on the Bottom of the Lake by Loren Long and Llama Llama Red Pajama by Anna Dewdney. The series kicks off this week with a special 90th anniversary reading of The Little Engine That Could, which Parton cites as a personal inspiration.

“It is an honor for me to share the incredible talent of these authors and illustrators,” Parton said in the statement. “They make us smile, they make us laugh and they make us think.”

So whether you need a little help getting your kids to sleep after another long day trapped inside the house with them or you’re just a regular anxious, if childless, person who wants to hear a soothing story read aloud in the voice of a goddamn angel, Dolly Parton is the hero we all need right now.

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