By ALYSSA WALKER, Beacon Media Contributor
Warwick resident Katie Frazier’s Little Library endeavors are evidence that it really is the little things in life that make you happy.
Growing up with a grandmother who read every day of her life, Frazier developed a love of books that she wanted to spread across her Warwick community and all of Rhode Island. In 2015, she established a Little Free Library in the exploratory play area at Roger Williams Park Zoo in Providence.
“I realized with the exploratory play area that there was no fun learning aspect for science,” Frazier said. “So I thought if we added books, kids could learn about nature that’s not just in their backyards, and they could see nature that might be in another part of our country.”
Frazier has visited more than 3,750 little libraries across the country and often seeks them out in her travels. This journey started several years ago on her first solo trip out of New England.
“I decided one day to fly out to Cincinnati, and I thought maybe I’d just go to see little libraries. That seemed comfortable to me since I own one here, and everything else just bloomed from there,” she said.
Since that first trip, Frazier frequents the map on the LFL website, has friends and family tell her where they have seen them and does research into where she can make her next literary pit stop. Her research once led her to a small town in New Mexico where she found eight little libraries.
There are more than 100,000 Little Free Libraries across the United States and more than 200,000 around the world, the LFL website says.
Over the years, Frazier has also collected more than 4,200 books to put in little libraries that she encounters. She purchases some of them, but most of these books are donated to her by friends and family, saved from landfills or given to her by Buy Nothing groups. There was one occasion where she traveled north of Boston and saved 400 books from a school district that was discarding them.
When visiting little libraries, Frazier makes it a point to leave books for all age groups and reading levels. After often seeing donations of only children’s books or only adult novels, Frazier thought it was important to give a variety of books so any age group could get the most out of their visit. She also leaves Easy Readers and children’s chapter books for adults looking to improve their reading skills.
Due to her years-long dedication to the mission, Frazier recently won the Little Free Libraries Award for Outstanding Achievement. She was nominated by a friend as well as an anonymous voter because of her advocacy in Warwick and at the Roger Williams Park Zoo in Providence.
“It is a privilege to recognize Katie Frazier as one of this year’s winners of the Todd H. Bol Award for Outstanding Achievement,” said LFL Executive Director M. Greig Metzger. “Her volunteer efforts exemplify the vision of the late founder of Little Free Library, Todd Bol, to engage communities and enrich lives through the power of shared books.”
Just like Frazier, you can start your own little library at your house. All you need to do is find or build a weather-resistant cabinet. (Frazier upcycled an old newspaper vending box, but you can also purchase a library from the LFL organization), fill it with books and register your library on the LFL website. Frazier hopes that, by continuing to propagate LFLs, more neighborhoods will benefit by more people reading.
“It’s to spread the love of books and reading, and it’s also for book access. There are so many book bans in the country that I purchase books to make sure they’re still accessible for kids who can’t get them from public or school libraries,” Frazier said.
To find a Little Free Library near you, visit www.littlefreelibrary.org/map.
