The Little Box in the Front Yard
It wasn’t supposed to become anything. It was just a little wooden box.
Todd Bol built it in 2009 in Hudson, Wisconsin. He shaped it like a tiny one-room schoolhouse, mounted it on a post in his front yard, and put a handful of books inside. It was for his mother. She had been a teacher. She loved to read. And now that she was gone, Todd wanted something outside his house that reminded him of her. So he built it. Then he waited.
At first, people slowed down when they walked past. Then someone opened the little door. A book disappeared. Another appeared in its place.Then another. People began stopping more often. Neighbors who normally walked straight home lingered. Children looked through the shelves. People brought books they had finished and left them for somebody else.
Something strange was happening around this little wooden box. It wasn’t really a memorial anymore. Todd made another. Then another. He gave them away. And the same thing kept happening. People opened the door. They took something. They left something. And somewhere in between, they began talking to one another.
Todd eventually teamed up with Rick Brooks, and together they came up with an almost ridiculous goal. A century earlier, Andrew Carnegie had helped fund 2,509 public libraries around the world. Todd wanted these little wooden boxes to surpass that number. By the end of 2013.
Think about that for a second. A guy in Wisconsin had built a birdhouse-sized memorial in his front yard. And now he wanted it to compete with one of the largest library-building efforts in history. But Todd had stumbled onto something powerful.
He wasn’t really building libraries. He was giving people a way to build them themselves. One front yard at a time. One neighborhood at a time. One book at a time. By August of 2012, more than a year ahead of schedule, the little boxes passed Carnegie’s 2,509-library mark. Then they kept going. Ten thousand. Fifty thousand. One hundred thousand.
Today, there are more than 200,000 registered in 128 countries and on all seven continents. More than 400 million books have moved through them. You know them as Little Free Libraries.
But here is the part I love most. Todd Bol built the first box. He did not build the library. Everyone else did. Every person who opened the little door. Every child who found a book inside. Every neighbor who slipped one onto the shelf for someone they would probably never meet. The idea worked because nobody had to do very much. Everyone simply carried a little piece of it forward.
And now you know... the rest of the story.
What We Pass Along
We have one of those little boxes here at Post & Pour. Maybe you walk past it every week. Maybe your child has pulled a book from it. Maybe one of your old favorites is sitting inside right now, waiting for somebody else. And that may be the beautiful thing about books. They are meant to move. From a teacher to a student. From a parent to a child. From one neighbor to another. The same can be said for most of the things that make a community worth living in: Knowledge. Stories. Traditions. Kindness. Opportunity. None of them become more valuable by keeping them to ourselves. This fall, there are plenty of ways to come pass a little something along.
What’s Happening
POST & POUR KARAOKE
Saturday, October 10 | 7–10 PM
Your shower-singing career has led to this. Belladonna Nights is taking over Post & Pour for three hours of fearless neighborhood performances, questionable song choices, and a room that is already on your side.
A WHOLE LOT OF FALL CRAFTING
October is for making things. Halloween terrariums, Pumpkins & Patches, a wildwood moss wreath class, Hocus Pocus cookie decorating, and our Tehaleh Artist Meet-Up are all on the calendar. If cooler weather makes you want to pull up a chair, order something good, and create something with your hands, we’ve got you covered.
BOO-INGO FOR BOOKS
Thursday, October 29 | 6–8 PM
This one brings the whole story full circle. Join the Bonney Lake–Tehaleh Rotary Club for a Halloween bingo night with one simple goal: help put a new book into the hands of 300 local kids. Costumes are encouraged. Competitive bingo behavior probably is too.
A Thought to Pass Along
Stephen King once wrote: “Books are a uniquely portable magic.”
Maybe that is why a little wooden box in one Wisconsin front yard could travel so far. A book moves. An idea moves. An act of kindness moves. And sometimes all it takes to keep something good going is to take what was given to us and leave a little something behind for whoever comes next.
Thank you for being part of what keeps moving through this community.
With gratitude,
The Post & Pour Team
