Items19The creator’s order
  1. 1Dolly PartonDolly PartonBorn 19 Jan 1946Dolly Parton started the Imagination Library in her home county in Tennessee in 1995, inspired by her father, who could not read. It posts a free book every month to registered children from birth to age five, with local partners sharing the cost, and by mid-2026 it had gifted more than 325 million…0i
  2. 2LeVar BurtonLeVar BurtonLeVar Burton hosted Reading Rainbow on American public television from 1983 to 2006, and its "But you don't have to take my word for it" segments, with children reviewing books, sent viewers to libraries for a generation. When the show ended he bought the rights and relaunched it as a digital…0i
  3. 3Laura BushLaura BushLaura Bush worked as a school librarian before politics, and she brought that training to public life. She founded the Texas Book Festival in 1995, then launched the National Book Festival with the Library of Congress in 2001, which still draws large crowds in Washington. Her Laura Bush Foundation…0i
  4. 4Oprah WinfreyOprah WinfreyBorn 29 Jan 1954Oprah's Book Club began on her talk show in 1996 and quickly showed that one television endorsement could put a literary novel on bestseller lists for months, an influence publishers nicknamed the Oprah effect. She revived it in later years through her magazine, streaming and social media. The…0i
  5. 5Queen CamillaQueen CamillaBorn 17 Jul 1947Queen Camilla has been patron of BookTrust, the UK's largest children's reading charity, since 2011, and supports other literacy charities including the National Literacy Trust and Coram Beanstalk. During lockdown in 2021 she started an online book club that became The Queen's Reading Room charity…0i
  6. 6Marcus RashfordMarcus RashfordBorn 31 Oct 1997Marcus Rashford followed his free school meals campaign with the Marcus Rashford Book Club in 2021, run with Macmillan Children's Books. The model is specific: books are given to pupils to keep through primary schools supported by the charity Magic Breakfast, with classroom resources from the…0i
  7. 7Chris Evans (presenter)Chris Evans (presenter)Born 1 Apr 1966Chris Evans launched 500 Words on his BBC Radio 2 breakfast show in 2011, inviting children to write an original story of no more than 500 words. In its peak years it drew well over 100,000 entries annually, judged with help from librarians and teachers, and the Oxford University Press studied the…0i
  8. 8Reese WitherspoonReese WitherspoonBorn 22 Mar 1976Reese Witherspoon started Reese's Book Club in 2017, picking one novel a month with a woman at the centre of the story. Unlike many celebrity picks it has a pipeline behind it: her company Hello Sunshine has adapted club titles such as Where the Crawdads Sing and Little Fires Everywhere for screen.…0i
  9. 9Jenna Bush HagerJenna Bush HagerBorn 25 Nov 1981Jenna Bush Hager, a former teacher and the daughter of a librarian, has run the Read with Jenna book club on NBC's Today since 2019, interviewing each month's author on air. She also co-wrote children's books with her mother, Laura Bush, and supports the family's library foundation. Her picks lean…0i
  10. 10Emma WatsonEmma WatsonBorn 15 Apr 1990Emma Watson launched the feminist book club Our Shared Shelf in 2016, choosing titles by writers such as bell hooks and Margaret Atwood, and joined the Books on the Underground project by hiding copies on the London Tube for commuters to find. The club was participatory rather than promotional,…0i