Little Free Libraries around the UK

As we begin to plan for 2015, we take a look back at some of the LFLs we installed around the UK over the past year.

It is our aim to have installed 100 in total by the end of 2015. Increasing access to books, promoting art and bringing communities together through their love of reading.

Little Free Libraries around London and the UK

Happy reading!

Little Free Libraries and the promotion of free public art

“Imagination does not become great until human beings, given the courage and the strength, use it to create.” Maria Montessori.

Books open us up to a world of imagination, but before a person chooses to pick up, open and read a book, they may need to be inspired to do so. If books are fuel for the imagination, then the places where the books reside should inspire us too. That's why all of our Little Free Libraries are decorated with vivid and engaging art.

As well as being free book sharing venues for communities, each Little Free Library is a one-of-kind piece of inspiring public art. We work with a hugely talented variety of artists, from traditional contemporary artists and book illustrators to street artists, tattoo artists and many more besides.

Below we feature some of our most recent Little Free Library creations and shine a light on the fantastic artists that helped turn each into a magical and inspiring art installation.

Gabriela Castellanos has worked with us to create two beautiful artworks. The first is installed on Garner Road in Walthamstow. Above, Gabriela adding colour to the second, Epping Forest themed Little Free Library, installed on Overton Drive in Wanstead.

Above: Oliver and Freddie celebrate after their Little Free Library is installed outside their home in Wanstead.

Above: The Urban Fox Little Free Library in Stoke Newington by Hannah Adamaszek. Hannah is well known within the street art scene for her female portraits, which have brought a painterly style often found within contemporary art. In 2013 she created a stunning urban fox mural as part of the Mural on the Marsh project in East London. She has now added her urban fox design to two of our LFLs, which have both become very popular. How could you walk past this without stopping to take a book?

Pictured above, the nature themed Little Free Library by artist Leticia Molera Vasquez (pictured right) and below at work in her tattoo studio.

Artist Emma Scutt worked with us on one of our very first Little Free Libraries, pictured below left. She has been a great supporter of our charity through her collaboration and has added her beautiful, engaging art to three Little Free Libraries.

Above right: Emma brings a night owl to life. Emma has created a wide range of stunning murals as part of her portfolio and her LFL designs now form permanent art installations for communities to enjoy. We'll be installing two Little Free Libraries on Wingfield Road in Walthamstow, London on Friday 3rd October. The first pictured above right and the second will be unveiled on Friday, which is themed especially for children and of course filled with wonderful children's books.

The Red Lion Lane Little Free Library will be roaring into life on Saturday 4 October in Woolwich, South East London. The red lion design was created by illustrator Emma Russell. This is the second Little Free Library that Emma added her unique and inspiring art to.

Above: Emma Russell adds her illustrations to the Hear, Bear Pear Little Free Library. You can listen to Emma talking about how she came up with the design on London Live.

On one of our most recent projects we have been working with a very unique artist with a craft that dates back to the 15th century. Russell Frost of Hooksmith has added a one of a kind book cover to one of our Little Free Libraries, which will be installed at the Wanstead Tap in Forest Gate, London on 18 October.

Pictured above from left: Russell next to his printing press; letters inset within the press; and the top of the Little Free Library with the printed words "Once upon a time at the Wanstead Tap".

Letterpress printing was the normal form of printing text from its invention by Johannes Gutenberg in the mid-15th century until the 19th century and remained in wide use for books and other uses until the second half of the 20th century. We'll be announcing the launch event for the Wanstead Tap Little Free Library very soon. Check our website or follow us on Facebook to stay up to date.

Kiko Honda-Powell studied architectual and interior design in Osaka, Japan. Now a resident of London she has added her interpretative artistic stylings to two of our Little Free Libraries. Pictured above bluebells, trees and sunlit leaves subtly encourage passers-by to stop in for a book.

Above: a recent coffee morning meet-up at community cafe Albert and Francis in Leyton, East London, where the Little Free Library has become a popular feature.

Johnny Rotten and Samuel Plimsoll (who were both born in the area) have a chat on one side of the Finsbury Park Little Free Library, while a child points passers-by in the right direction on the door. The wonderful illustrations were created by Islington based artist Teresa Robertson. The LFL is stewarded by a wonderful community of book lovers in the Plimsoll Road area of Finsbury Park.

We'll be posting more pictures and featuring more artists soon. In the meantime you can keep up with our progress around the country on Facebook, Twitter and on our website.

Little Free Library Project UK

Registered charity no. 1158557

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Leyton's Little Free Library arrives with it's artist

Artist Kiko Honda-Powell took delivery of the Leyton Little Free Library today. She has plans to decorate the LFL with a theme inspired by nature. Sorry we can't give away more than that! However, you won't have to wait too long too see the finished article when it is installed in Leyton in mid July.

Kiko has worked with us before. She added her striking designs to the Little Free Library we created for London charity Eat or Heat, see below.

Kiko studied architectural and interior design in Osaka, Japan. She now lives in London with her husband and two children.

www.littlefreelibraryproject.org.uk

A Little Free Library for Frederick Bremer School

We're very pleased to announce that we will be building a unique Little Free Library in partnership with the fantastic students at Frederick Bremer School in Walthamstow, North East London.

We've teamed up with the outstanding students and teachers at Frederick Bremer School to design a Little Free Library just for kids, to share their books with one another on campus.

We visited the school recently to talk to year 7 students about their favourite books, the love of reading and our Little Free Library Project. We were so impressed with the literary knowledge of the kids we met. When asked how many Shakespeare plays they could name, we had to give up counting when they passed 10!

We showed the kids one of our Little Free Libraries and asked them if they liked the idea of sharing books with each other. Suffice to say the answer was a resounding YES! As a consequence we have agreed to build a very special Little Free Library designed by the Frederick Bremer School students, with support from their wonderful English and Art teachers.

Above, some of our Little Free Libraries before they are decorated and below after our amazing artists have added their eye-catching designs.

On 8 July we will be attending the 'Reading is Fundamental' launch event at Frederick Bremer School where we'll be talking more about the project and the tremendous value reading books can have. We love books!

Over the summer holidays our magic workshop in Sussex will build a unique Little Free Library for the school, which will then be decorated with designs inspired by the students. Before the beginning of the new school term, the finished library will be installed in the foyer of the school for students, parents and visitors to see. It will then be available for all of the school's students to share their books with one another.

We've also launched a fundraising campaign on Kickstarter to help fund the project. We're a non-profit organisation that builds and installs Little Free Libraries in the UK to promote reading, literacy and art. Please support if you can - thanks! 

Promoting reading, literacy and art in the UK

How kids in East London helped create a Little Free Library

My name is Kate Westbrook and I run a start up company called The Climbing Frame which develops and runs creative projects with children in East London. I saw the Little Free Library Project (LFL Project) online and thought it would be lovely if the kids that I work with at The Climbing Frame could take part in some way.

I contacted Nick Cheshire, the Project Manager for the organisation and he thought it was a great idea to involve children in the design of a Little Free Library.

Working with a group of 5-9 year olds at The Mill on Coppermill Lane in Walthamstow, we decided to take our inspiration from lots of lovely fresh fruit and made bright graphic collages with coloured paper. There were grapes, strawberries, apples, pears, grapefruits, oranges, bananas and even a big spiky pineapple! During our making session, the kids were free to eat the fruity still life subjects - the strawberries disappeared particularly quickly!

I then took photos of their wonderful designs and painted them onto a special Little Free Library that the LFL Project had built for us. The kids' designs were so vibrant and graphic, they looked brilliant plastered all over the Little Library. One of the things that made this Little Library so special was that it was built especially for children and specifically smaller than all the other Little Libraries. In fact, I was told that it is the smallest Little Free Library ever made.

The Little Free Library is now installed in a special children's area at a family friendly pub in Walthamstow called the William Morris Bar. They have a special club just for kids called the Morris Minors and teach language classes to children at weekends as well as hosting the world's littlest Little Free Library full of inspiring kids books.

By Kate Westbrook, Founder of the Climbing Frame and Art teacher.

www.littlefreelibraryproject.org.uk

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The Little Free Libraries with an important message

Life has not been the same since my other half and I became hosts of a Little Free Library in Walthamstow, East London. It sounds dramatic but never before have I felt the urge to nip out the front door, dressing gown-clad at 6.30am, to check the overnight activity within the house shaped box perched on our front gate. I met more neighbours in the first 72 hours of it being installed than I had in the seven years I’ve lived here.

Colourful "Cartoon Cathouse" by illustrator Tim Reedy

Sometimes I peer out the window to watch the faces of children light up as they spot it (ours is a cartoon cathouse painted by my partner Tim Reedy so it’s a kid-magnet). Lovely upbeat comments from adults waft through our open windows. I feel incredibly proud, if not a little smug to have got one of these libraries. Our cat, who tends to spend most of his time out in the front now, soaking up the adoration from passing children is also getting a little too big for his boots.

But there is a serious message too. These wonderful, fun Little Free Libraries encourage everyone to pick up a book. No questions asked, no money paid, no reasons needed. They walk by and if they see a book they fancy, they take it. They’re reading. And that’s wonderful.

I teach literacy to adults in my borough of Waltham Forest. I know for a fact that literacy is a problem in my backyard, just as it is in yours. According to the National Literacy Trust, one in six people suffers with reading and writing. This means their literacy is below the level expected of an 11-year-old.

There is a lot of focus on children’s literacy and of course that is important. However, when someone leaves compulsory education, they can flounder; hiding their problems from others by asking their partners to fill out forms and such like. Often those people can spend years, decades, if not all their lives, not being able to read and write effectively.

Some of my students sacrifice their evenings to study with me because they find their reading skills are being superseded by their children’s. Others are there because they are being passed over for jobs and they want to improve their career prospects. Many are embarrassed about their literacy skills. They lack confidence and can be morbidly quiet. Literacy is not just reading and writing, but speaking and listening too. I see that just as their reading and writing improves, so do their verbal skills.

These people are busy. Most have jobs or children or both. When we start the course and I ask if they read books, they tell me they don’t have time. Some lack the confidence of tackling a book aimed at adults with their long words and thick pages. That’s why they prefer to read to their children, and when their kids can read better than them, they’re at a loss.

We do work with the public libraries and in no way do these Little Free Libraries supplant the wonderful work they do. Yet it’s a fact of life that many of my students don’t visit the libraries or if they do, it’s with their kids, to find books for them.

So if one person picks a book out of a Little Free Library that they happen to walk past, then that is a brilliant, positive thing. In my class, once we have visited the main library together, we have regular discussions about what we’re reading. Not everyone is. But some are and they talk with passion about the plot or how dreadful the storyline is and it’s brilliant to hear.

So, yes, these Little Free Libraries are a fun addition to the neighbourhood. They are a colourful talking point and have encouraged people to pass their cherished books on. But there’s an important community benefit here too.

Kate Bohdanowicz, Little Free Library host and adult literacy teacher
London E17

For more details on London's Little Free Library Project visit www.littlefreelibraryproject.org.uk

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