In a town packed with literary possibilities, your next read could be around the corner

On a recent sunny Monday, Erin Checka, steward of the Annursnac Hill Association Little Free Library, watched a group of students from Nashoba Brooks School walk past. 

“They’re looking,” she said, as children paused before the little house of books. 

The AHA placed the library at the corner of Annursnac Hill and Strawberry Hill Roads in 2019. Along with the kids — and teachers — from Nashoba Brooks, Checka said they’ve had neighborhood visitors and roller skiers. Some people take books, and some leave them. 

“I always liked the little free libraries because I love sharing books that I love with people,” Checka said. 

The composite hut is weatherproof and has been easy to maintain, aside from ants one year. 

The books have a “demographic for everyone,” she said. “I just saw [a book] in there I might walk away with.” 

Little Free Library is based in St. Paul, Minnesota. The non-profit maintains a list of book-exchange boxes worldwide, managed by volunteer stewards. The boxes sit in accessible areas of the stewards’ yards, and passersby can browse books and leave their own. Though one can buy a kit through the organization, handy bibliophiles can build their own and register it, for a fee, to be included on the map. 

Take a book, share a book

That’s the case with Gerry and Yvette Boyle’s box — their granddaughter built their original library in 2015. 

“Our extended family loves books, and this was a way to share our supply with the neighborhood,” their daughter Susan Boyle said. 

She’s the director of the Barn Cooperative Nursery School, which is housed at the Acton Scout House. Former teacher Cindy Kennelly set up a library there in 2016, and her daughter, Melissa, painted it to resemble the building.

The elder Boyles’ house is within walking distance from Thoreau Elementary School, and some parents and children visit weekly. During Porchfest, Yvette Boyle said, several attendees stopped to browse. 

“There were little children, too,” she said. “And they walked out with some books.” 

Not only has the little house brought camaraderie to the neighborhood, Gerry Boyle said it makes a good landmark, and people know they’re “the house with the little library.” 

The library at Henry’s house

Rebecca Migdal, Thoreau Farm’s executive director, is the steward of a Little Free Library in the farm parking lot that predates her arrival in 2021. 

“I think they saw it as an opportunity to engage not only our visitors but the folks that come to volunteer at Gaining Ground,” she said. 

The library provides a little takeaway for visitors as the farmhouse is open only three days a week and doesn’t have a gift shop. 

For the most part, visitors fill Thoreau’s little library. 

“Every once in a while, we get a [book] donation here at the farmhouse,” she said. “If there’s something that is more recreational reading, we’ll put that out.”

The Thoreau library has an added touch: plants on its roof, fitting for the birthplace of a man who loved nature. 

“A little bit of green goes a long way,” Migdal said.

Not far from the farm, on Old Bedford Road, Ken Fraser bought his wife a Little Free Library as a 2023 Christmas gift. 

“My wife’s a huge reader, and often with young kids, you don’t make it to the library as often as you would like,” he said. “So the idea was if we got one, there’s always going to be … something interesting to read.”

Fraser started by stocking several of his wife’s favorite books. 

“I was hoping it would be like the Netflix algorithm,” he said. “If people come by and enjoy these books, they’re going to put in other things that you like and, therefore, will get the algorithm going the right way.”

He said it’s always a big hit when someone drops in a kids’ book that his three boys, ages 3, 5, and 7, haven’t read.

“They’ll give something the benefit of the doubt that’s been put in there,” he said. 

‘A very literary community’

Acton is a “good Little Free Library town,” Lisa Liberty Becker said. During the pandemic, she and her family built their library at their North Branch Road home. 

“My husband is really handy, and I am a writer and professor. … It seemed like a good thing to do,” she said. “I have had a lot of traffic; Acton, you know, is a very literary community.”

But Becker and Checka noted one drawback: On a few occasions, the libraries have been emptied.

Checka’s not sure if the books are read or resold. 

“That’s kind of frustrating,” she said. 

Becker said a neighbor saw someone pull up with a duffel bag to empty her library. 

Though that’s discouraging, both stewards said they’re not stepping back from sharing books.

“It’s such a nice concept, because it really is an honor system,” Becker said. “We’ve got a little network of people who I know are always borrowing and then putting back in. … I’m hoping to get back to the ‘nice idea’ part.”