FOREST CITY Michaela Clark, 82, has always loved to read.

Sometimes I have three books going at once, said the Forest City resident.

Now she is encouraging others to develop a love of reading.

A few weeks ago she opened a Little Free Library in front of her house at 130 Westgate Drive. She thinks its the first one in Forest City.

A Little Free Library is a wooden box thats filled with books. The box has a door with a window so passers-by can see the titles of the books that are inside before they open it.

People are encouraged to take a book and return it, or keep the book and replace it with another book.

The more than 50,000 Little Free Libraries around the globe are maintained by volunteer stewards like Clark.

Clark said she had heard about Free Little Libraries here and there and mentioned it to her daughter Theresa Giradi, who lives in the Des Moines area.

Theresa told her husband, Tony, and he looked up the directions online on how to build a Little Free Library.

Clark, who had forgotten she had even told her daughter about the Free Little Libraries, was at their house and saw Tony building something.

I asked if it was a birdhouse and he said, No, its for you. Its your library, she said. Hes such a sweetheart.

Theresa painted the library for her mom.

Clarks other daughter and son-in-law, Lorie and Doug Bolinger, who live south of Forest City, installed the Little Free Library box on top of a post on the lawn next to the curb in front of her house.

Clark put some books from her huge collection in the box. She said she checks the library once in a while and can see people have removed books and replaced them.

One day she saw some children open the door to check out what was inside.

They were so cute standing there and going through them all, Clark said.

The youngsters came back and put some childrens books in the Little Free Library. Clark said she appreciates that because there werent many books for kids in the library originally.

Last Wednesday the Little Free Library contained novels by Danielle Steel, Tom Clancy, Herman Wouk and Gillian Flynn, as well as the classic childrens book The Story About Ping and the more contemporary Diary of a Wimpy Kid.

She plans to switch out some of the books in the box with others she owns.

You never know what people like to read, she said.

Clark has plenty of books to choose from.

I have quite a stash downstairs, she said.

Clark said her library, which is registered with the Little Free Library non-profit organization, is in an ideal spot, with lots of single family homes and apartment buildings in the neighborhood.

We have a lot of little kids from across the road, she said.

Its not difficult to start a Little Free Library of your own, she said. All the information is available online at littlefreelibrary.org.

The hardest thing was getting a building permit and all the stuff that goes with it, she said.

Clark hopes her library will encourage others to read, and maybe start Little Free Libraries of their own.

I hope it catches on and someone gets some good out of it, she said.

More:
Forest City woman shares love of reading through Little Free Library - Mason City Globe Gazette