She glanced out the window on Dec. 25 and saw her Christmas present lying on the picnic table. Someone else might have mistaken the gift for a bird house or a mail box. But Jane Kinney-Denning knew what it was. She had asked for a Little Free Library, and now she had one.
Mrs. Denning has lived in Cornwall with her husband and three children for 10 years. While her roadside library is the only one in the community, it’s far from unique. Todd Bol built the first one in Wisconsin in 2009, and now there are thousands of them around the country.
The idea was to promote literacy and the love of reading. But the stewards or curators of the libraries have found several side benefits. “I’ve talked to more neighbors in the past two weeks than I have in the past 10 years,” Mike Cornell says on the parent organization’s web site. He identifies himself as the steward of Library #26303.
Mrs. Denning was excited about her Christmas gift for other reasons. She edits a blog and she’s a professor in Pace University’s Publishing Program. Her books are like friends. Instead of giving them away, and being permanently separated from them, she’d rather loan them to people who will enjoy them. And she’s looking forward to checking her library to see what books have been taken.
You see she’s just getting started. After painting her library, she had it installed in front of the house at the start of this month. She’s in a good location. She’s across Route 94 from Cumberland Farms. So people can shop and pick up a book to read at the same time. Lots of teenagers and young people walk through the Denning property to get to the development behind it. Mrs. Denning hopes that some of them will be tempted to look inside the box.
And, of course, a side benefit is the book collection has become a landmark. People trying to find the Denning home can now look for the Little Free Library in front of it.
And people visiting from out of town, can go on line (littlefreelibrary.org) to see the location of the nearest lender.