Borrowing books is easier thanks to Little Free Libraries

Libraries are the best. I'm a regular at my local libraries.

I love everything about the concept of borrowing books, which is why I am so excited by a new kind of lending facility popping up in shopping areas, neighborhoods and communities around the globe.

I'm talking about "Little Free Libraries," a movement that started seven years ago in Hudson, Wis., when artisan Todd Bol decided to honor his mother, a teacher who loved to read, by building a model of a one-room schoolhouse and mounting it on a post in his front yard. Bol stocked his miniature little red schoolhouse with reading material and a sign that said "Free Books."

He then invited friends and neighbors to take anything they wanted. The response was amazing. Books flew out of the wooden structure just as quickly as new ones arrived, contributed by readers with volumes to share.

News about Bol's book depository traveled fast. Before long, people began asking if he could make little libraries for them too and Bol did. He built and gave away several more structures before joining forces with Rick Brooks, a youth and community development educator at the University of Wisconsin's Madison campus. Together, Bol and Brooks fine-tuned the concept and helped spread the idea of Little Free Libraries through social media.

In May 2012, Little Free Library officially was established as a Wisconsin nonprofit corporation. Today, nine years after Bol built the first one, more than 36,000 registered Little Free Library book exchanges are in all 50 U.S. states and more than 70 countries around the world. One man's desire to do something nice as a tribute to his mother turned into a worldwide phenomenon of the sharing economy.

I found my first Little Free Library a year ago in front of a private residence in New Smyrna Beach on aptly named Faulkner Street. It's easy to tell from the creatively decorated appearance of the two-compartment, glass-fronted, wooden enclosure that the Faulkner Street book box is a labor of love handmade by a family that values reading. The top section contains a constantly changing mix of fiction and non-fiction titles while the bottom part — with a separate latch that kids can reach — overflows with children's books.

Handmade by a family that loves books

Unlike the New Smyrna Beach box, the next Little Free Library I discovered was exclusively for children. It's located inside Axum Coffee at 146 West Plant Street in Winter Garden on a low table next to the kid's play corner. 

Unadorned but functional.
The Little Free Library at Axum Coffee
 is stocked entirely with children's books

Instead of being a homemade structure, the glass-fronted, cedar-roofed mini-library is one of several designs available directly from the Little Free Library website where models start at $149.

But it was my most recent discovery in downtown Clermont that really excited me. According to the non-profit organization's website, there are 257 registered Little Free Libraries in the Sunshine State but only three in Lake County. Two are in Tavares. The third one — the one I happened upon the other day — is in front of The Barn Yarn in downtown Clermont.

A whimsical and colorful structure in front
of The Barn Yarn in downtown Clermont

Angela Territo, owner of business, built, decorated and installed her Little Free Library outside her West Montrose street storefront. The tall, colorfully painted structure caught my attention as I was browsing Clermont's downtown business district. The grandfather clock-sized cabinet includes four shelves for books. Handwritten signs that say: "Take a book, Leave a book" and "Sharing is Caring" are taped to the two hinged, glass-fronted doors.

It's all about sharing...

In this day of digital this and online that, I find it tremendously reassuring to know that there are others close to home who not only share my passion for real, hold-in-your-hand, turn-the-page books but also support the free exchange of reading materials for all people no matter what their age or where they live.

One day soon, I plan to join this devoted group of bibliophiles by building a Little Free Library of my own. Maybe mine with be Lake County's fourth library to be registered with the Wisconsin-based organization — unless someone beats me to it. I wouldn't mind that at all. No matter who does it first, everyone wins.

Sherry's BLFs (Best Literary Finds) of 2015

As a reader with a voracious appetite for the written word, I always find it a pleasure to discover new authors. I’m especially thrilled when I chance upon writers who have been hard at work for years, producing one novel after another.

During the past 12 months, my literary fortune has been enriched by the discovery of several new-to-me novelists. Jojo Moyes, Joseph Monninger, Jeffrey Stepakoff, Deborah Smith, and Juliet Blackwell are all contemporary writers with large bodies of work that, until this year, I didn’t know existed. How glad I am to have made their acquaintance through the pages of their books.

Meet my 6 new BLF's (Best Literary Finds) of 2015

 

Moyes is a British author with 13 titles under her belt while New Hampshire resident Monninger has written 22 books including one memoir, two non-fiction titles, many young adult books and three wonderful novels for adults that I thoroughly enjoyed.

I liked Moyes’s work so much that after reading the first book I picked up – One Plus One, which was released in 2014 - I went on what I call a ‘JoJo Jubilee.’

Since January, I’ve read six more of Moyes’s novels and enjoyed every one. Because Moyes writes with a British accent, her stories include many phrases, terms and colloquialisms that were unfamiliar to me, but I liked that about her stories. In addition to positive outcomes, relatable characters and captivating plots that kept me turning pages late into the night, I enjoyed learning new terminology and being transported through print into different cultures and ways of seeing the world.

While Moyes writes from a British perspective, Monninger’s three adult fiction books come from a New Englander’s viewpoint. The first Monninger novel I read was the deeply touching Eternal on the Water (2010), which is set in Maine. From there I went on to read his two other fiction titles as well as two of his young adult books.

Monninger, who lives in New Hampshire and teaches English at Plymouth College, infuses his novels with his deep passion for nature. His characters are kind, sensitive and attuned to their surroundings. As a former New Englander myself, the settings in Monninger’s stories were familiar. I could easily imagine canoeing down a river in Maine (Eternal on the Water), skating over a frozen river (The World as We Know It) or gazing out of a farmhouse window at the falling leaves (Margaret from Maine).

Although North Carolinian Jeffrey Stepakoff is the author of four novels with over a million copies published in 20 languages, he is perhaps better known for his decades-long career in film and television as a screenwriter, producer and developer of television series, films and major motion pictures. Some of his notable work includes shows such as Dawson’s Creek and The Wonder Years and movies like Disney’s Brother Bear and Tarzan.

 

During the past year, I read three of Stepakoff’s four novels and found myself especially taken with his 2010 novel, The Orchard, a love story with an unexpected romance set in the north Georgia and Carolinas countryside.

Like Stepakoff, author Deborah Smith also bases many of her stories in the Appalachian Mountains where she was raised and still lives. As the author of 35 novels in romance and women’s fiction, Smith calls her novels "big, romantic, southern family stories."

I appreciate her portrayal of strong female characters overcoming obstacles and often defying societal conventions. Of the three Smith novels I’ve read so far this year, my favorite was Sweet Hush, the story of a southern apple farm and the ‘bushel’ of trouble that suddenly surrounds it.

Author Jenny Colgan, who has written 20 novels over the past 15 years, divides her time between homes in France and England. 

Both countries are reflected in her 2013 book, The Loveliest Chocolate Shop in Paris, which was the first of four novels I read last year by Colgan. In this book main character Anna Trent relocates from northern England to work in a small but famous chocolate shop in Paris.

As Trent learns more about her new trade, I too found myself absorbing knowledge not only about the making of chocolate confections, but also about French life in present times as well as during the last century. 

Juliet Blackwell is the author of 22 books but so far, I’ve only read one - her 2014 novel The Paris Key, which I discovered last month. Like so many of the other wonderful stories I read this year, I couldn’t put it down. I found myself staying up late at night to read just a few more pages. 

Blackwell skillfully combines French history with architectural facts. She mixes in numerous French phrases – which I enjoyed asking my husband to interpret for me - and included fascinating facts about locksmiths and the importance of keys to unlocking the secrets of not only of rooms but of life itself. 

Any book that teaches me about subjects I previously knew nothing about while also serving up generous helpings of plots, different cultures and determined female characters is a book that warrants reading and sharing with others.

As 2015 nears its end, I’m grateful for the talented writers whose printed words have taken me on so many imaginative adventures as well as the public libraries where I found most of this year’s reads. If you have favorite books from the past year, please share! Together we can begin 2016 with a reading list of our own.