Fun little libraries popping up in Tucson neighborhoods

Coming across a little pocket of literary joy in the Broadmoor-Broadway Village Neighborhood is a bit like discovering a special hiding place or a secret clubhouse.

But the Little Free Library in the timeless Tucson neighborhood is no secret. Its one of more than 15,000 tiny libraries and one of about a dozen in Tucson that are part of the worldwide Little Free Library movement, created by lovers of books and builders of community.

In Tucson, neighborhoods are creating their own little public libraries places where neighbors can gather, drop off a book and take one home. The motto is take a book, return a book.

The movement started in 2009, when Todd Bol of Hudson, Wisconsin, built a model of a one-room schoolhouse as a tribute to his mother, a former teacher who loved reading. He filled it with books and put it on a post in his front yard, with a sign that read Free Books. Neighbors and friends loved it, and he built several more and gave them away.

Today, the number of registered Little Free Libraries across the world grows daily, overloading the map at the nonprofits website, littlefreelibrary.org

Among the newest additions is the Broadmoor-Broadway Village Little Free Library, which was planted in a neighborhood pocket park Sept. 21, said Joan Thomas, who spearheaded the project with neighbors and her daughter, Debbie Weingarten, who maintains the library as steward. The neighborhood is southwest of Broadway and Country Club Road

This all started a year ago, Thomas said. I was walking with a neighbor and we got on the subject of this box with books and what a fantastic idea it was for a neighborhood.

After months of research and conversations, she got in touch with Meg Johnson, who helped start a Little Free Library in Tucsons Garden District Neighborhood a couple of years ago.

With tons of information and motivation, Broadmoor neighbors first looked in thrift shops for a cabinet they could repurpose. The perfect cabinet appeared as neighbors launched a remodeling project and donated a kitchen cabinet to the effort.

Tapping into the talents of neighbors, the project took on a life of its own. Neighbor Ryan Brown, a woodworker, took a plain kitchen cabinet and created a weatherproof Little Free Library, adding an attic space, Thomas said.

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Fun little libraries popping up in Tucson neighborhoods