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Date: 5/13/2021
LONGMEADOW – A little blue box in front of Blueberry Hill School in Longmeadow is filled to the brim with books available for the community to borrow. Little Free Libraries (LFL) are fairly common, but the one created by third-grade Brownie Girl Scouts Troop #64922 is part of an initiative to spread stories of diverse people and perspectives.
The troop has 11 members in the third grade at Blueberry Hill School – Beatrice Benson, Maya Cartun, Lucy Dalessio, Willow Danishevsky, KiraHong, Layla Mackie, Catherine McKenna, Georgia Reardon, Annabelle Shenoy, Ellie Spear, Mary-Kate Stevens – and one honorary member, kindergartener Jordan Arnold.
Scout Leader Kara Stevens said the Brownies had fundraised $800 through cookie sales in 2020 and they wanted to use it to do something that the community could use in a socially-distanced, safe way. The group hit upon the idea of a Little Free Library.
LFL is an organization that helps people and communities put small boxes filled with books in accessible locations to encourage reading. Stevens said the Brownies put together a Powerpoint presentation to explain their idea to Blueberry Hill School Principal Amy Stec and Superintendent of Longmeadow Public Schools M. Martin O’Shea and received permission to put it on school property. The troop then had to decide how old the readers should be. “They really wanted this to be for kids their age,” Stevens said.
The group also latched onto the Little Free Library’s Read in Color initiative, which encourages reading about people who are different to increase understanding and empathy.
LFL’s Read in Color program has four components. Stewards of the libraries and people who use them can sign a pledge to read and share diverse books and gain access to bookmarks, stickers, social media badges, and a “Read in Color” sign for Little Free Library doors. LFL patrons can also enter a giveaway sponsored by Scholastic at https://littlefreelibrary.org/books to win a copy of “All Because You Matter” by Tami Charles and Bryan Collier.
There are recommended reading lists for different age groups to get patrons started on reading books that represent Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Asian/Pacific Islander, Muslim and LGBTQ communities. Finally, LFL has been establishing new Little Free Libraries with culturally relevant books in high-need communities. This initiative has been expanding nationally from the first one in Minneapolis.
“The thing that is most exciting is that the girls wanted it to be inclusive,” Stevens said of the library. “They wanted to offer stories about people who don’t look like them.”
In addition to the cost of the library, the Brownies used $200 of the money they raised to purchase books but also donated titles from their own collections and hosted a book drive at the school. Stevens said that leading up to the drive they put out flyers explaining that they were collecting books about inclusion, anti-racism, different racial and ethnic groups, LGBTQ communities, anti-bullying and people with physical or cognitive special needs and illnesses.
Part of the reason it was important to the kids to include books with characters with disabilities and illnesses was because Arnold, who has spinal muscular atrophy (SMA), is in a wheelchair, Stevens shared.
Many of the books in the LFL at Blueberry Hill School cover these topics and some overlap with stories of inspirational women and historical individuals, such as in the titles “She Persisted: 13 American Women Who Changed the World” by Chelsea Clinton, “Kamala and Maya’s Big Idea” by Meena Harris, “Who Is Malala Yousafzai?” by Dinah Brown, “Jackie Robinson and the Story of All Black Baseball” by Jim O'Connor and “Of Thee I Sing: A Letter to My Daughters” by Barack Obama.
“I am incredibly proud of the social activism of the girls scouts and their families and caretakers in this inclusive library that they thought of and fundraised for and put into action,” said Stec. “And here we are with this public little free library outside, not only for the community but for the kids here at Blueberry. It’s really great. I think these girls worked so incredibly hard and they deserve so much recognition.”
Stevens echoed that sentiment. “We’re all kind of doing our part,” she said, “but it’s these little things that the upcoming generation are doing that I think really matters.”