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PEOPLE | CULTURE | HAPPENINGS
Little Free Libraries encourage communities to read
Boxes of Books
by CHARLOTTE SMITH
photography by ALLISON POTTER
Jody Becker’s Little Free Library at the intersection of W. Henderson
Street and N. Lumina Avenue in Wrightsville Beach.
www.wrightsvillebeachmagazine.com WBM
BRIGHTLY decorated
triangular
wooden box
sits on the
corner of W.
Henderson Street and N. Lumina
Avenue in Wrightsville Beach,
waiting for passersby to open
the wood-framed glass door and
take — or leave — a book. The
dark blue aluminum roof protects
the interior from the elements,
preserving the books that patiently
wait for a new owner to open their
pages, giving them new life.
The beach-house modeled box
holds books by authors including
Mary Higgins Clark, Nora Roberts,
and Catherine Coulter. It also
includes a Bible and a guestbook, so
locals and vacationers alike can share
their experiences and appreciation.
This box is a Little Free Library,
one of 60,000 worldwide. The
“take a book, return a book” idea is
meant to encourage reading and
allow for increased book access.
Anyone is invited to use this “mini town square.”
“The mission is to inspire a love of reading, build community, and
spark creativity through these book exchanges,” says Margret Aldrich,
author of “The Little Free Library Book” and program manager for the
Little Free Library organization.
The Little Free Library at the intersection of W. Henderson and N.
Lumina, on the grounds of the Sand Crab Cottage, was installed by
Jody Becker, the owner of the vacation house.
“It is dedicated to my late grandmother, Mabel Jensen, who was
a one-room school teacher,” says
Becker, who lives in Fairfax, Virginia,
for most of the year. “She read to
me often and instilled in me my
love of books. It gets a lot of walker
traffic, and it’s fun to sit up on the
porch and watch it all. I maintain it
when I am in town. Otherwise my
housekeeper takes care of it, as do
the residents on the street. They’ve
really adopted it and frequently
add books themselves.”
Wrightsville Beach residents
and visitors have a second option
not quite a block away on the
Loop. There’s another little box at
803 N. Lumina Avenue, installed
three summers ago by Paula
Lanier, with an official Little Free
Library sign over the door and
an invitation to “take a book” and
“return a book.”
“I love to read and I had books
all over the house,” Lanier says. “I
saw Little Free Libraries online and
said, ‘I want to do that.’ I just love
my library. I sit on the porch and
people don’t know I’m there and I love to hear what they say. It’s been
fun to watch. A man left a note that said ‘This is a great idea, I’ll bring
a book a week.’ That’s what I love about it. I’ll even put a new book in
there because I want to share it with somebody.”
Todd Bol built the first Little Free Library in 2009 as a tribute to his
mother, a schoolteacher with a love of books. His box — a model of
a red-and-white one-room schoolhouse, complete with a bell atop
the box and a small sign with his mother’s name — was a hit in his
neighborhood in Hudson, Wisconsin, inspiring Bol and college student
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