By Robyn Collins
Dolly Parton is famous for her voice, her songs, her theme park, “DollyWood” and among other things, her passion for children’s literacy.
Related: Dolly Parton Ate Fast Food for 50th Anniversary
In 1995, the icon founded the Imagination Library, a program that provides kids in East Tennessee, where she grew up, with books, delivered by mail each month. And now she’s adapting her signature song, “Coat of Many Colors,” into a children’s book.
Parton’s Coat of Many Colors comes out October 18 and tells the story of a young mountain girl whose family can’t afford to buy her a winter jacket. Her mother comes to the rescue by making a coat out of some old rags. Wearing the homemade garment doesn’t make the girl popular at school as she gets teased and bullied. But the young Dolly eventually understands the beauty and love that went into the coat.
The book includes pages of illustrations as well as the download of Parton’s new song “Making Fun Ain’t Funny.”
The TV-movie version of Coat of Many Colors debuted last December. A follow-up film, Christmas of Many Colors: Circle of Love, will air in November and will feature Parton in a cameo as the town prostitute.
