There is an often-told story that is a modern parable. It comes from “Dream More,” the memoir by Dolly Parton. One day, when she was on a trip to Los Angeles, she heard about a Dolly Parton look-alike contest. To her sense of humor, it would be fun to enter the contest, and that is just what she did. She exaggerated her signature on-stage appearance with more makeup and bigger hair. With a group of friends, she made her way to the bar where the contest was being held. She didn’t let on her real identity, took a number like the other contestants, and got in line. Contestants walked across the stage, and the audience voted with applause. The biggest applause would win. Not only did she not win the contest, she got the smallest applause of the contestants.

She tells the story in her memoir because she thinks it is funny. I like the story because it shows how appearances can be deceiving. People thought they knew what Dolly Parton looked like but couldn’t recognize her when she appeared in person.

I have no special knowledge of Dolly Parton. I’ve listened to her music and watched a few of her appearances on late-night talk shows. I’ve read articles about her. I haven’t read her memoir, only a few reviews and excerpts from the book. I know enough to be convinced that her life has been remarkable. She is famous as an artist. She holds three Guinness World Records: most decades on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart by a female performer, most number one hits on Hot Country charts, and most total hits on the Country charts by a female artist.

From the outside, with Dolly Parton, what you see is what you get. She is honest on stage and in interviews. She uses the name that her parents gave her at birth. They have a lot of experience naming children. She is the fourth of 12 children born to Avie Lee Caroline and Robert Lee Parton. Her mother gave birth to those 12 children in 20 years. Her tenth pregnancy was twins. They were all born before she was 35. Her father never learned to read and supported the family, working as a sharecropper, tobacco farmer, and construction worker. They didn’t have much money. Her maternal grandfather was a country preacher, and it was in church that she first began to perform publicly.

She has invested some of her earnings in buying back the family farm and reconstructing its buildings. She has also developed a theme park around her birthplace and childhood years.

The part of her story that inspires me the most is her literacy program called Imagination Library. It started as a literacy education program in the county where she was born. Being the daughter of a man who was illiterate might have been the seed of the idea. She had parents register their children for the program at birth. Those registered received a free children’s book each month until the child turned five years old. The State of Tennessee picked up on the program and partnered with a foundation Parton created to expand the program statewide. Later, the program was extended across the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and Ireland.

A few months ago, I attended a book fair in our town. I was staffing a table for a local independent news organization where I serve on the board. Our table was next to my favorite independent bookstore and across from our county library system. At the corner of the library tables was a life-sized cardboard cutout of Dolly Parton. I stood next to the cutout and joked with my grandchildren. “I may be old, but I’m younger than her.” They gave me the expected reaction, and it gave me a chance to explain the Imagination Library program to the children. In 30 years, it has registered over 3 million children and given away over 270 million books. It has inspired children to love reading around the world.

Parton has written several children’s books. “Coat of Many Colors” includes the lyrics of her hit song with the same title. It is the story of a girl who needs a coat. Her mother sews her out of rags. When they see it, her classmates mock her for being poor, but the girl knows that her coat was made with love “in every stitch.” Her second book, “I Am a Rainbow,” helps children connect feelings with colors. People talk about being blue when they are sad and red with anger. Yellow is a color associated with being afraid. She has also written two books that feature a bulldog named Billy the Kid, which promotes family values.

I’ll never be able to enter a Ted Huffman look-alike contest. I’m not famous enough to make anyone want to look like me. I got a new pair of sunglasses this spring, and I’ve been joking that I could shave off my beard and enter a Joe Biden look-alike contest, but I’m not expecting to find such a contest. A generic old white guy isn’t as interesting as a famous country singer. However, I share Parton’s passion for inspiring young children to read. I love sharing read-aloud books with children and am lucky to have still a preschool grandson who loves to have me read to him. I’ll probably never write a children’s book, but I have many stories I’ve told to my grandchildren.

One of the blessings of my life is that for 25 years, I worked in a building with a preschool for three—and four-year-olds. I loved the sound of the children as they walked through the halls, the displays of their artwork in the hallways, reading their names on the posters put up at the beginning of each school year, and the questions they asked me when I visited with them and their teachers in the hallway.

One could do much worse in this life than giving books to children.