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For more than a decade now, Little Free Libraries have been popping up in neighborhoods across the country and the world. Sometimes these welcoming spots for swapping reading material are uniquely designed or creatively decorated, while others focus on certain themes. The idea of freely sharing books with one’s neighbors is simple, yet powerful. To quote Daly City Little Free Library steward Mai Le, “Books are very easy, tangible things to share, but they have a lot of significance because of the ideas they have.”
The Little Free Library project got its start in 2009, when Wisconsin resident Todd Bol built a model one-room schoolhouse in his yard (in honor of his mother, a teacher), filled it with books and delighted passersby.
The concept took off from there and is now an international nonprofit organization, boasting more than 175,000 officially registered libraries in more than 120 countries. The Peninsula is full of them, and many of you no doubt have your own neighborhood favorites.
We’ve highlighted a few below, and you can search for many more by using Little Free Library’s map feature online or via an app. A quick browse of the map, for example, finds a “Doctor Who”-themed box offering books and games in Mountain View, a library dedicated in memory of a dearly departed duckling in San Mateo and an ocean-front box along the coastal trail in Half Moon Bay, to name just a few. Who knows, once you start exploring you may be inspired to start your own!
‘The spirit of sharing’
Le, the founder of the Skyline Blue Book Box in Daly City, sees the Little Free Library as one piece in a community-building puzzle.
“I very much believe in the spirit of sharing, and that sharing brings communities together,” she said. “It’s a place where you can give and take things – no strings attached.”
Le is also an admin of her local Buy Nothing group, which has a similarly community-and-environmentally-minded ethos, and was inspired to start the Skyline Blue Book Box during the pandemic.
“I asked in my Buy Nothing group if anyone would be willing to help build one,” she recalled. “That catapulted everything.”
The resulting bright blue library (it will get some repairs this year, as it’s incurred some storm damage) was created through the collaborative effort of that group. Its contents are lovingly curated by Le, with carefully selected books on display and in rotation, with a goal of reflecting the diversity of Daly City.
“I wanted to have a diverse focus for our books. There are always books by BIPOC authors and queer authors, both for kids and adults,” she said.
The library is part of Little Free Library’s Read in Color initiative, committed to reading and sharing diverse books. Le is on the advisory committee, helping develop book recommendations for the program.
In addition to books, Skyline Blue Book Box also often has “little extra treasures in there; stickers and bookmarks,” Le said. Around the holidays, for example, a neighbor made a batch of Christmas-themed reading stickers for box browsers to take. A San Francisco-based “yarn bomber” has twice decorated the box with winsome textile creations.
“People loved it and I would always see people stopping to look and take pictures,” Le said. “I love the joy that these book boxes can bring people, for free.”
The folks who manage Little Free Libraries are called stewards. At the minimum, Le said, a good steward makes sure the box is kept clean and stocked – but not overstuffed – with books. Some, though, go above and beyond the basics.
“I really found a lot of joy in, kind of, doing the extras,” Le said. Skyline Blue Book Box has nearly 1,600 followers on Instagram, where Le posts frequent updates and reading recommendations, and amplifies community and book-related info.
She’s taken part in Make A Difference Day, Little Free Library’s annual community service day, by collecting books and making cards for Daly City senior citizens. She also, with some help from neighbors, organizes children’s book parties.
“I know a lot of parents of younger kids have books they are ready to give away and always are looking for more,” she said.
In 2023, Le was given a Todd H. Bol Award for Outstanding Achievement from the Little Free Library organization, granted to a few stewards each year, nominated by community members.
“I was really surprised to get it. I’m honored nonetheless,” Le said. “I actually still don’t know who nominated me. I never found out!”
Le typically has more books at the ready for when the box needs replenishing, and, when she has too many at a time, she donates to other Little Free Libraries or to the local nonprofit Peninsula Book Collaborative.
For those interested in stewarding a successful Little Free Library, Le said that it takes some effort to keep it going (“It’s not ‘set it and forget it,'” she noted), and advised patience and managing expectations.
“It can take time for people to understand the Little Free Library and adapt to it being in their neighborhood,” she said. “Modeling what you want to see and talking to neighbors directly about your Little Free Library can help.”
Girl power
One of Redwood City’s newer Little Free Libraries represents some of its youngest bookworms. The Oliver Street box (near Red Morton Park), launched in October of 2024, is the service-badge project of a troop of third- and fourth-grade Girl Scouts.
It’s located in front of the home of Jenny Barnes who, in addition to being the parent of a troop member (she and her daughter share stewarding duties), is also a librarian at the Redwood City Public Library.
“All the girls love books and want to help with providing books to children in Redwood City, to further literacy,” Barnes said. The Little Free Library is the culmination of the “A World of Girls” journey for the troop – a series of activities and experiences that ends with an ongoing service project.
The box itself is upcycled – sourced by another parent, who had obtained it from her Buy Nothing group and donated it to the troop. It had been previously decorated with collaged book and magazine materials, and as part of the refurbishment and in order to make it more kid-centric, “each girl got to choose a book or a map to collage on top,” Barnes said.
Barnes’ brother helped with setting up the post, and the troop used its funds to go through the official Little Free Library registration process (chartering fees are typically around $50). The scouts donated most of the books, with Barnes also sourcing from donations not selected by Friends of the Redwood City Library for its book sales.
As a librarian, Barnes is perhaps especially mindful of the power of books – and free access to them.
“There are studies that say the number of books in a personal library correlates to academic success,” she noted. According to Little Free Library’s website, “today in the United States, more than 30 million adults cannot read or write above a third-grade level. Studies have repeatedly shown that books in the hands of children have a meaningful impact on improving literacy.”
Little Free Libraries can help, especially for folks who may not have easy access to a public library.
“I think they’re important because they provide access to books for people who don’t have the money to buy them themselves,” Barnes said. “I like the community aspect of it, too. The environmental aspect of sharing and not purchasing, that recycled mindset, I think is really cool also.” Plus, it’s just plain fun.
“Who doesn’t just love stumbling onto a box of books?” she said.
‘This Little Free Library is Antiracist’
Take a stroll on Walnut Avenue in Burlingame and you’ll see a box proudly declaring in painted letters, “This Little Free Library is anticracist.” Stewarded by Pooja Shah and her family, it’s part of the Antiracist Book Initiative from the nonprofit Rise Up Against Racism, which was co-founded by Shah’s friend Jenny Roy, in the wake of the killing of George Floyd.
Roy and co-founders Meg Honey and Sarah Foster wanted to do something useful in combatting systemic racism and decided that education was a way they could help.
“Their model was essentially to build and place these antiracist libraries around local communities to both serve as ‘the mirror and the window’ into the experience of some of these more marginalized communities,” Shah said. “When (Roy) told me the concept and the desire to start with education as a way of raising awareness – giving understanding about what others might experience – I thought it was an awesome idea and I wanted to get involved.”
The Shah family’s library, founded in early 2021, is one of multiple Rise Up Little Free Antiracist Libraries around the Bay Area.
Inside are books selected from a carefully curated reading list for all reading levels, guided by the research of Rudine Sims Bishop, with the goal of informing and inspiring readers.
The nonprofit commissions artists to paint each box and, thanks to its Community Antiracism Reading and Engagement (CARE) Program, provides a second “sister” library for each one started (the Shah family chose their children’s elementary school, also in Burlingame, as the location for the second).
“I think the great thing about the library is the way it was designed, with content for both children and adults,” she said. From engaging children’s books such as “All Are Welcome” to books for grown-ups such as Trevor Noah’s autobiography, the books are chosen to champion diverse voices and activate readers. The nonprofit regularly updates its reading lists and provides more books a few times a year, Shah said.
Stewards restock on their own as needed in between.
Little Free Antiracist Libraries are meant to function a bit differently than the typical library boxes. Instead of being places where anyone can leave books, and pass on books they pick up anywhere, instructions let patrons know that the books there were chosen intentionally and meant to be returned to the same spot. This system has proven challenging in practice, Shah said.
“The idea is for all the content to be antiracist in nature, not a place that houses any and all inventory, if you will,” she said. “Every book, there’s a sticker on the back side that says ‘Please return me to the antiracist library.'”
Shah said she and other stewards have found themselves frequently pruning out books that don’t fit the theme and replenishing stock that doesn’t make it back to the boxes.
“We keep trying to parse out all the titles that don’t belong and replenish the ones that do, but the educational process, especially at the school site as families come and go, has been difficult,” she said. Still, “the response has been really positive” and she and her family love seeing the community interact with the library.
“I am the daughter of Indian immigrant parents. I know what it was like to grow up without seeing protagonists in stories who look like me,” Shah said. “Knowing my children don’t have to experience that is one of the reasons we were so inspired to do this, too.”
More information on Little Free Libraries is available at littlefreelibrary.org. More information on Rise Up Against Racism and its antiracist libraries is available at ruar.org.
