The Imagination Library sends a book to a kid every month from the time they’re born until they’re 5 years old. These messages are from the first and last books sent. It’s hard to overstate what Dolly Parton did to not only improve the lives and educations of so many kids, but the impact she had on southern Appalachia as a whole. The land once known for uneducated, backwards hillbillies would not be known as the forests of rolling wonder and communities built on kindness and folklore without her. My friend’s son was heartbroken today, thinking Dolly herself was sending his monthly books by hand, and she might as well have been. I’ve grown up, and my daughter will grow up, in a land made better because of her and there isn’t a way to say “thank you” enough for that. These mountains are something special, made by God, and worth remembering for every story in them and every story they inspire. Dolly never forgot that, and her legacy will be the same as the hills she came from.