Craig and 2020 Golden Guitar double nominee Ashleigh Dallas popped into Tamworth hospital today to celebrate the introduction of Dolly Parton's Imagination Library to the maternity unit.

The program provides a free book every month for the first five years of a child's life - and Craig said this could be life-changing.

An Australian The Voice winner, he struggled with stuttering as a child; the first book that really touched him was The Rainbow Fish.

Read also:

"The Rainbow Fish is the only rainbow fish; he's different in a way, and I remember reading that and how that impacted me, how I felt," Craig said.

"I could really relate to that."

Books could also teach about overcoming adversity, he said - a theme from his autobiographical kids' book, Harrison's Song.

Dallas said already 500 babies had been registered since the Imagination Library program was launched in January in Tamworth regional libraries - including her daughter Harriet, the 11th member.

Now it's also being offered through the hospital's State-wide Infant Screening Hearing Program (SWISH), which aims to see all new babies, it's expected 800 to 900 local newborns per year will be signed up.

"For new parents, getting out of the house is not as easy as you imagined it would be, sometimes," Dallas said.

"Since the program has been offered through SWISH, it has lifted our success rate [of newborns being signed up] to 100 per cent from 45 per cent."

She said receiving that monthly book on the doorstep was a "subtle and gentle reminder" to read to kids every day.

SWISH clinical nurse consultant Carol McKinnon said reading to and with babies and children boosted their social, emotional, communication, language and speech development.