Hudson's Little Free Library Awarded National 'Innovations in Reading Prize'

Little Free Library was recently one of five organizations nationwide to receive the National Book Foundation’s Innovations in Reading Prize.

Each year, the foundation recognizes five organizations that demonstrate passion, creativity, dedication and leadership in the service of creating and sustaining a lifelong love of reading.

In 2010, when Hudsonite Todd Bol and Rick Brooks first shared ideas about what was to become the Little Free Library movement, the idea was simple: A box of books that looked like a one-room school house with a sign that said "Free Books."

Posted in his front yard by the St. Croix River in Hudson, the first model was a memorial to Bol's mother, a teacher who loved to read. But the curiosity and delight of neighbors suggested there was something more to it.

The phrase "Take a Book, Return a Book" explained it pretty well, the name Little Free Library stuck, and the mission became clear-to promote a sense of community, reading for children, literacy for adults, and libraries around the world.

By late 2011, nearly 400 Little Free Libraries had been installed in the U.S.

Within two more years, the total had swelled to between 6,000 and 8,000 in 42 countries, from Ghana to Japan. Millions of people have opened the doors of Little Free Libraries to find good books donated by their neighbors and contributed their favorites for others to read.

Other winners include:

• Reading Is the Way Up of Los Angeles, California
• The Uni Project of New York, New York
• The Uprise Books Project of Vancouver, Washington
• Worldreader of Seattle, Washington.

Each winner will receive $2,500, a framed certificate and an all-expenses-paid trip to New York City to attend a special luncheon at the Ford Foundation, where they will present their work to funders, other people in the field and reporters.