New book nook in P.C.
October 3, 2024 at 1:01 a.m.
Calli Jones is a lifelong lover of literature.
And if her book-shaped earrings don’t make that clear enough, her front lawn does—sitting on the corner of her 24 Mitchell Pl. property is Port Chester’s only Little Free Library.
It’s a blue wooden box full of books any passerby can visit to find something new to read or drop off something they’d like others to try. The Little Free Library exchange boxes were created by a Minnesota-based nonprofit of the same name, which was founded to provide book access, build community and encourage reading.
Anyone can build, or purchase, a Little Free Library and join the network of others that spans 120 countries across all seven continents.
Jones, who currently works as the Port Chester deputy village attorney, said she decided to create her own box for two reasons: she needed to lower the number of books in her collection, and she hadn’t seen one in the Village.
“Me and my mom have always shared a love of reading, and when I finish a book, I mail it to her so she can read it, too,” Jones said. The back-and-forth with her mother in Jackson, Tenn., culminated in her home getting filled to the brim with texts.
“There are just hundreds of them in there,” her husband Tim said during a visit to their home on Wednesday, Oct. 2.
“Even when we were living in Queens, I kind of had to figure out what to do with all the extra books,” she laughed. “And I because I had seen many Little Libraries in our old neighborhood, they kind of became a part of my plans for moving to Port Chester.”
When the two finalized their move to the Village last November, Jones started looking into what it takes to join the Free Little Library community.
“There are a couple of online resources that were really helpful for that,” she said. “There’s also a map on the group’s website that shows all the locations around the world, and I saw there wasn’t one in Port Chester.”
The Village previously had a Little Free Library, donated by members of Girl Scout Troop 2127 in 2019, but it was stolen in an act of vandalism two years after its installation in Lyon Park.
After assembling the exchange box with assistance from their landscaper, Jones became the steward of the “Mitchell Place Little Free Library.”
While she had originally intended to use it as a method of decreasing her collection of books, it did little to do so.
“Some of them are books I’ve finished and am giving away, but there are some that I’ve put in there that are duplicates of books that I didn’t want to part with,” she admitted.
When asked what her favorite book is, it took her two minutes to eventually narrow it down to an author.
“I can’t just pick one. I want to pick 10 of them.” she laughed, before eventually settling on “The Great Alone” by Kristin Hannah.
At first, the 34-year-old tried to include a larger variety of genres, including children’s literature, in the book exchange box, but she began to adjust to what was being taken from the collection.
“We quickly learned there aren’t a lot of kids in the neighborhood,” she said. “I actually started keeping track of what gets taken out to see what people are into.”
According to her notes, the thriller/mystery genre is currently the most popular.
Jones said the box is popular enough to warrant restocking weekly.
“Because Tim is out in the yard more often than I am, he gets to see people use it more than I do,” she said. “But when I get the chance to see someone looking through it, it really just makes my day.”
Tim added the installation has allowed him to feel a greater sense of community.
“It’s definitely a conversation starter with our neighbors,” he laughed. “And because there’s this huge network of them, we’ll get people come here specifically because of it.”
While Little Free Libraries are known for their “take a book, leave a book” system, Jones said it’s not necessary to do so.
But she does encourage those who stop by to sign the guest book she’s placed inside.
“People will write down what they left or what they took,” she said. “I think one of my favorite parts about this is reading the notes people leave. They’re very sweet.”
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