Little library brings free books to community

Residents of Boulder City looking for a good book can take a ride down Elm Street and turn into Moore’s Mobile Home Park. At space No. 117 you’ll find Susan Reams’ Little Free Library, a tiny wooden box with a red roof that offers free books to the community.

The tiny box sits next to her porch and is filled with a variety of literature from Ernest Hemingway’s “The Sun Also Rises” to cookbooks.

“There is really something for everyone here,” Reams said. “I asked family, friends and neighbors for suggestions and they all came back with advice or a donation.”

Little Free Library is a Wisconsin-based nonprofit that, for a small price, will handcraft a wooden box that can be placed with books that the whole community can read.

Reams wanted to get involved with the group after she read an article and heard about Andrea Dempsey’s Little Free Library on Avenue D. There are currently two library boxes in Boulder City.

“I wanted to do a book exchange in the community for a long time,” Reams said. “When I heard about free library I knew this was the perfect way to share books with the community.”

When the library was set up the residents of the mobile home park responded with book donations and some offered to make improvements on the little library for free.

Ream’s son Josh donated some of his favorite “Star Wars” books and manga comics (manga is a Japanese style of comic book).

“‘Star Wars’ and manga are just really cool,” Josh Reams said. “I donated some comics because I want more people to read manga and enjoy it as much as I do.”

Reams’ neighbor Caryl Hulsey said she loves the new addition to her community and even agreed to spruce up the wooden box by staining it.

“This is a really nice thing that Susan is doing,” Hulsey said. “My husband and I wanted to help make her library better so we are going to do some wood work on it.”

Improvements are also being made by Reams herself. This week she added records for old-fashioned music lovers, snacks for hungry readers, and garden seeds so literary enthusiast with a green thumb can do some gardening.

If she could get one thing out of her library, Reams hopes the small wooden box will inspire people to read and give back to the community.

“I hope to inspire people to pay it forward and promote literacy,” Reams said. “Reading can take you to wonderful places and I hope people continue to read and donate from our library.”

Contact reporter Max Lancaster@bouldercityreview.com or at 702-586-9401. Follow him on Twitter @MLancasterBCR.