You’re probably familiar with “Little Free Libraries,” those book-exchange kiosks where you can take a book for free and possibly leave another in its place. Usually, you find a lone “Little Free Library” – the name is trademarked – on a neighbor’s lawn or a street corner.
But if you’ve driven down the Bay Road in Queensbury lately, you may have spotted a small cluster of little libraries – six of them, to be exact, beckoning like colorful birdhouses among the maples, elms and beech trees dotting the woodsy property of Pam Wilcox, her husband, Don, an ironworker, and their four border collies.
Mrs. Wilcox, a petite and spry 63-year-old grandmother, has always loved books. She has felt protective of them ever since she saw “Fahrenheit 451,” the dystopian 1966 movie in which the authorities set books on fire, hoping to stamp out independent thinking. She has also always loved children, especially those who have been neglected or underserved; decades ago, she ran after-school programs for tweens in Lake George Village.
Mrs. Wilcox has brought these two passions together on a small plot of land that measures about 200 feet by 25 feet, a roadside plot she has transformed into a fanciful storybook forest for young readers.
Adjacent to the pastel-colored kiosks, a handcrafted wooden bench wraps itself around two trees in a playful “figure eight” swirl. Adirondack chairs provide seating, with a small fire pit nearby. A picnic table, where Mrs. Wilcox regularly sets out books, is ready for boardgames. She has installed a netted “spider swing” between the trees.
“I want to go back to the simple life of showing kids how to have fun for free,” Mrs. Wilcox said the other day as she shoveled dirt to make way for a stone retaining wall.
Her little kingdom evolved in a round-about way. Last year, Verizon moved a telephone pole closer to the road in front of the Wilcox’s house. Worried that cars might hit it, they raised up their lawn and extended it to meet the pole, providing a buffer around it.
In the process, the front yard inadvertently became a platform, or a kind of stage – a perfect showcase for books and children.
Mrs. Wilcox registered with Little Free Library, a nonprofit organization based in Minnesota that encourages people to set up book-sharing kiosks. (There are more than 150,000 registered Little Free Library boxes in 120 countries.)
It took a village to bring Mrs. Wilcox’s dream to reality. Her sons, who run a family-owned home-building business, gave her cabinets they had removed from kitchens. Her husband created their peaked roofs. Mrs. Wilcox painted them and decorated them with decals. Her nephew dug holes for the posts.
Once the decorative kiosks went up, gawking motorists slowed down to see what was taking shape along this otherwise unremarkable tree-and-shrub-lined stretch of Bay Road, seven tenths of a mile north of Route 149.
“Ever since I put down the sod, everyone has been slamming on their brakes and beeping their horns,” Mrs. Wilcox said. “Bicyclists wave and say, ‘Good job!’ When a crew from the town goes by, they yell out, ‘Keep going!’”
All summer long, she has been puttering around the property, planting flowers, raking gravel, swapping out books from the kiosks with others from her vast collection, which she built up over the years from local book sales and donations. A group of firefighters gave her begonias and vincas. Workers have been clearing a large area for parking and piecing together a stone retaining wall.
Although construction is still underway, people are already taking books. Mrs. Wilcox doesn’t expect them to leave a book; most people don’t travel with spares to give away, she noted, and she has plenty to keep the kiosks full.
Three of the kiosks contain books for young readers, while three others are stuffed with adult fiction, mostly mysteries and thrillers, with lots of Grisham, LeCarre and Turow. Plenty of romances too.
Mrs. Wilcox’s own taste runs to books like “Jane Eyre” and “Now, Voyager,” tales of women facing big challenges.
But for her, creating this playland has not been a challenge but a labor of love.
“I never knew it would turn into such a magnificent thing,” she said, beaming.
Her hope is that one day, some of the young people she cared for in after-school programs will come by with their own children. She is eager to see the gift of reading shared with the next generation.
The library is located on Bay Road between Route 9L and Rt 149. You can reach it by driving Route 9L from Lake George Village toward Dunhams Bay and then heading south on Bay Road.
