08/30/2026
๐๐ฒ ๐๐จ๐ฅ๐ฅ๐ฒ ๐๐ญ๐จ๐ซ๐ฒ
People are telling their Dolly stories. Iโm Emily, one of the board members here at Annieโs Foundation, and this is mine.
My dear friend Naji has been part of my life for the better part of eighteen years. Somewhere along the way, he became friends with Dolly Parton.
At the time, I didn't think all that much about Dolly. Of course I knew who she was. She was a musician, and while I'm not really a music person, I knew and liked her songs. She was a movie star, and I'd seen her movies. She was ๐ท๐๐๐๐ฆ ๐๐๐๐ก๐๐. Everyone knew Dolly Parton.
And every once in a while, I'd be with Naji and Dolly would call.
That was always a little thrilling.
Their friendship wasn't a secret. Naji encouraged Dolly to support the COVID vaccine research underway at Vanderbilt. And Naji's son, Jad, made the extraordinary podcast ๐ท๐๐๐๐ฆ ๐๐๐๐ก๐๐'๐ ๐ด๐๐๐๐๐๐.
I listened to it in the car. Initially, mostly because Naji was in it.
And then I got to โ๐๐๐ ๐๐ฌ๐ฌ ๐๐จ๐ง๐ ๐ฌ.โ
That episode introduced me to something I had somehow gone my whole life without encountering: ๐ญ๐ก๐ ๐ฆ๐ฎ๐ซ๐๐๐ซ ๐๐๐ฅ๐ฅ๐๐.
Old songs, carried through generations, in which women are betrayed, abandoned, beaten, drowned, stabbed, murdered. And again and again, the person who gets to tell the story is the man.
I had a visceral reaction to it. I still remember driving and nearly having to pull over because I was so shaken by what I was hearing.
But then Dolly talked about growing up with those songs. And about writing her own.
She understood the stories women had inherited. She understood who got hurt in them. She understood who got to speak.
๐๐ง๐ ๐ฌ๐ก๐ ๐๐ก๐๐ง๐ ๐๐ ๐ญ๐ก๐ ๐ง๐๐ซ๐ซ๐๐ญ๐จ๐ซ.
The women in Dolly's songs aren't just bodies lying beside the river while somebody else sings about what happened to them. They speak. They grieve. They rage. They survive unbearable things.
And eventually, they leave.
That episode completely rewrote Dolly Parton for me.
I had always seen the hair and rhinestones and enormous smile. Suddenly I saw the steel underneath them.
Here was a woman who grew up surrounded by stories that told women what happened to themโand spent a lifetime insisting that women could tell their own stories instead.
And could write different endings.
Years later, Dolly's work intersected with mine in an entirely different way.
When we started Annie's Foundation, there was Dolly againโthis time, through books. Her Imagination Library has put hundreds of millions of books into children's hands. For those of us who believe deeply in literacy and access to books, what she built is staggering.
But when I think about Dolly, I still think about that day in the car.
I think about murder ballads.
I think about the difference between being the woman a story happens to and being the woman who gets to ๐ญ๐๐ฅ๐ฅ ๐ข๐ญ.
And I think about books.
Because so many of the books being challenged and removed today do something Dolly understood deeply.
They let girls and women describe what happened to them.
They let them be angry about it.
They let them refuse the roles someone else wrote for them.
They let them survive.
And sometimes, finally, ๐ญ๐ก๐๐ฒ ๐ฅ๐๐ญ ๐ญ๐ก๐๐ฆ ๐ฅ๐๐๐ฏ๐.
Change the narrator, and it's a different story.
The neglected child gets to tell you what childhood actually looked like. The girl gets to tell you what it feels like to grow up in her body. The survivor gets to tell you why she stopped speaking. The daughter gets to tell you about the father everyone else admired. The woman history made into a villain gets to tell you what happened from where she was standing.
And deciding whose stories other people are allowed to read starts to feel like something more than a fight about books.
So this is our Dolly list.
Books that change the narrator.
Books in which women and girls get to be more than what happened to them.
And books that somebody, somewhere, has decided you shouldn't be allowed to read.
๐๐จ๐ฅ๐ฅ๐ฒ ๐ญ๐๐ฎ๐ ๐ก๐ญ ๐ฆ๐ ๐ญ๐จ ๐ฉ๐๐ฒ ๐๐ญ๐ญ๐๐ง๐ญ๐ข๐จ๐ง ๐ญ๐จ ๐ฐ๐ก๐จ'๐ฌ ๐ญ๐๐ฅ๐ฅ๐ข๐ง๐ ๐ญ๐ก๐ ๐ฌ๐ญ๐จ๐ซ๐ฒ.
๐๐จ๐จ๐ค๐ฌ ๐ญ๐๐ฎ๐ ๐ก๐ญ ๐ฆ๐ ๐ญ๐จ ๐๐ฌ๐ค ๐ฐ๐ก๐จ ๐ฐ๐ ๐ก๐๐ฏ๐๐ง'๐ญ ๐ก๐๐๐ซ๐ ๐๐ซ๐จ๐ฆ ๐ฒ๐๐ญ.
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๐๐,๐๐๐ books donated and counting!
