Saint Dolly visits across the pond

What an amazing person. Seriously, this makes me want to cry.

Nine To Five star Dolly Parton is used to performing in some of the world's biggest and best known venues. Yesterday, though, the globally famous blonde took her unique style to the unlikely setting of the Magna Science Adventure Centre in Rotherham - in a bid to improve the literacy of British children.

Dolly's Imagination Library scheme - which has been hugely successful in the US - is now being launched in the South Yorkshire town, after a local councillor brought the idea back following a visit to the singer's home state of Tennessee. Under the new initiative every child under the age of five will be sent a free book to read every month.

Manchester loves Ms. Dolly

and I do, too. There aren't too many songwriters more talented,

It's little wonder her British fans cleared the M.E.N. Arena box office of tickets for her show on Tuesday in less than a day. She's the woman who brought us THE anthem for the working classes, 9 to 5, the most poignant appeal to the other woman ever committed to song, Jolene, and the track that put Whitney Houston back on the musical map, I Will Always Love You (only, Dolly's version didn't come with a warning to protect any nearby glass objects from potential sound-related damage).

performers more witty

Take her retort to a reporter who asked whether her breasts (or as Dolly refers to them, her 'show dogs') were real: "They're real big and real expensive," she quipped. And then there's her unforgettable assertion that "it takes a lot of money to look this cheap".

But there's plenty of others; "If I have one more face lift I'll have a beard", "If I see something sagging, bagging and dragging, I'm going to nip it, tuck it and suck it", her wig confessional "wherever I hang my hair that's my home", the tale that her famous busty blonde image is based on a local prostitute, or the story of the day she lost a Dolly Parton look-alike competition that she sneaked into, unbeknown to the judges.

and more generous than Dolly Parton.

But she's been generous with the bounty. Dolly set a literacy programme - inspired by her father's illiteracy - called the Imagination Library, which mails a book each month to every child in Sevier County, where Dolly grew up, from their birth to their first day in kindergarten.

The scheme has been replicated in more than 550 counties in America and exported to Canada, and Dolly has won countless awards for it. In addition, she's opened a bald eagle sanctuary at her theme park and worked with AIDs victims and cancer patients to raise money for associated charitable groups.