Turn the page on a long winter: Little Free Libraries are the perfect Spring activity

Beckie Boyd
April 25, 2025

Little Free Libraries in Upshur County offer free books at numerous locations, fostering community connections and literacy for all ages while encouraging residents to donate, borrow, and share a wide variety of reading materials.

Editor’s Note: If a Little Free Library location in Upshur County has not been mentioned in this article, please let us know at news@mybuckhannon.com so we can add it to this article. Thank you for your contribution. Happy reading!

Is there a better way to spend a rainy Spring day than curled up with a good book, watching the rain hit the windowpane? Now, imagine if that book is free! You don’t have to imagine because that’s the reality in Upshur County, where Little Free Libraries provide access to a slew of literary works and encourage community engagement.

Although residents may have seen an array of books in various book-sharing stations throughout the community – for instance, along the Riverwalk Trail or at the City Park – many avid readers may not know that Little Free Library, which encourages readers to “Take a Book, Share a Book,” is a nonprofit organization based in Saint Paul, Minnesota. In fact, the program has more than 200,000 libraries registered in all 50 states, 128 countries and on all seven continents, according to its website.

“Little Free Library book-sharing boxes are an excellent way to build community and bring people together,” Margret Aldrich, director of communications for Little Free Libraries, shared with My Buckhannon in an email. “In underserved areas where books are scarce and most children don’t have a book to call their own, these neighborhood libraries can also provide essential access to books.”

“We have granted more than 3,000 Little Free Libraries and 120,000 books to high-need communities through our programs,” Aldrich added. “There are many ways for you to get involved with the Little Free Library nonprofit organization, from starting your own library to volunteering with us through Team LFL. Learn more at littlefreelibrary.org.”

The organization’s mission, after all, is to serve as a catalyst for building community by inspiring readers and expanding access to books via an international network of volunteer-led Little Free Library book-exchange boxes, according to its website. Just one community organization that benefits from the local network on Little Free Libraries in the Literacy Volunteers of Upshur County.

The Little Free Library at the Upshur County Senior Center, located on North Kanawha Street.

“Literacy Volunteers of Upshur County has been involved with maintaining our own Little Free Library and helping to restock other Little Free Libraries throughout Upshur County for many years,” said Jennifer Higham, director of LVUC. “Little Free Libraries provide books to children and adults who might not otherwise have access to or be able to afford them.”

Books, magazines and coloring books may be donated to any and all LFL locations. Literature genres may include children’s books, historical fiction, fantasy, romance, nonfiction, science fiction and more.

“Access to these LFLs helps prevent the ‘summer slide’ so many children experience when not regularly attending school,” Higham said. “But the real joy of a Little Free Library is that it offers stories that excite and stimulate the imagination and enhance the desire to read. Books can inform choices, comfort in times of grief or want, bring smiles and/or laughter, and offer wonder/appreciation about our world and even other worlds to the reader.”

Little Free Libraries may be found in the following locations throughout Upshur County: