Riders passing through Pace Suburban Bus stations in Schaumburg, Harvey, Hoffman Estates and Plainfield this week found something new tucked next to the ticket machines and bus bays: small wooden book boxes stocked with children's titles, a placard reading “in memory of Dolly Parton,” and an open invitation to take a book or leave one behind. Pace crews installed the little libraries on Thursday and Friday, timing the rollout to September 25, a date the agency and communities elsewhere chose to celebrate as “Dolly Day.”
The idea traces back to Pace Executive Director Melinda Metzger, who according to the Chicago Tribune said she wanted the agency to do something fun for 9/25, since Pace's marketing team had connected the date with Parton's 1980 film and hit song “9 to 5.” That wordplay-driven observance wasn't unique to the Chicago suburbs this year — Hoodline reported that New Orleans marked the same date with a citywide parade to raise funds for local Imagination Library chapters, part of a broader wave of literacy tributes following Parton's death in August 2026.
Pace built the libraries specifically to acknowledge Parton's Imagination Library, the nonprofit she launched to honor her father, who could not read or write, per the Tribune's reporting. The Imagination Library now mails millions of books a month to children around the world, and by late 2026 the program had distributed more than 300 million books to children from birth to age five across five countries, according to reporting cited by Hoodline.
A Personal Touch From Pace Staff
Metzger didn't just greenlight the project — she stocked it. The Tribune reports she contributed three Minecraft books from her own children and ordered a stack of bus-themed titles for young riders, including a copy of “The Spooky Wheels on the Bus.” Pace asked employees to donate the initial round of books, with the expectation that the little libraries will become self-sustaining as riders take a title and leave one in return, much like the front-yard book boxes the concept borrows from.
Pace bus driver Anthony Figueroa told the Tribune he plans to contribute books of his own and compared the new stations to a little box library in his neighborhood, where he once picked up a stack of cookbooks. Jim Weber, who has driven for Pace and its predecessor agencies for 51 years, is among the veteran staff watching the initiative take shape. Pace spokeswoman Maggie Daly Skogsbakken said the agency will continue maintaining the libraries going forward, and the boxes are expected to be reinforced over time.
Not Every Station Has One Yet
So far, Pace has installed libraries at stations in Harvey, Hoffman Estates and Plainfield, alongside the Northwest Transportation Center in Schaumburg, where one of the book boxes was photographed for the Tribune's report. Libraries planned for Bolingbrook and Elgin will arrive later, owing to a shipping delay, the paper noted. Pace also placed Dolly Day slogans on its buses to mark the occasion across the system.
The stations chosen aren't random stops — they're major multi-modal transfer points linking Pace's suburban routes with CTA and Metra rail service, according to the Regional Transportation Authority. That heavy daily commuter traffic gives the little libraries a built-in audience of parents and caregivers passing through on their way to and from work. Pace itself operates across 3,677 square miles and 274 municipalities in six counties, according to Pace Suburban Bus, making it one of the largest suburban transit systems in North America and carrying more than 16.4 million passenger rides in 2025.
A Statewide Literacy Push Behind The Gesture
Pace's book boxes are a small, rider-driven gesture, but they sit alongside a much larger, state-funded literacy effort already reaching Illinois families. Under Illinois law, the Imagination Library of Illinois Program provides a 50 percent state funding match for local sponsors that send free monthly books to registered children from birth to age five, a framework the state used to allocate $1.6 million in funding in fiscal year 2024, according to the Illinois General Assembly. That statutory push helped Illinois cross a major threshold this year: in August, the program mailed its 5 millionth free book statewide, serving more than 111,000 families across 95 of the state's 102 counties, as reported by Shaw Local. Local partners contribute roughly $16 per child annually, matched by the state, to deliver a dozen age-appropriate books a year to each enrolled child.
Dolly Parton died on August 25, 2026, at age 80 in Nashville after a brief battle with cancer, according to The Guardian, sparking tributes and fundraising campaigns nationwide. Pace's little libraries arrive as Illinois transit governance itself is in flux, with the state's public transit systems undergoing a major structural transition this year under the Northern Illinois Transit Authority Act, which reformed funding and oversight across Pace, the CTA and Metra, per Metro Magazine. Even amid that overhaul, the little free book boxes represent a low-cost amenity that Pace expects riders and staff to sustain largely on their own, distinct from the formal, taxpayer-matched literacy infrastructure already reaching tens of thousands of suburban Illinois families.
