Detroit: The Little Library Capital

A simple idea is having an extraordinary impact on literacy and local communities: take a book, leave a book. Students walk up, open the door of a dollhouse-sized wooden box, and take a book. They can keep it, return it, or replace it with one which they have already enjoyed, ready for the next person to indulge in.

Part of the reimagining of Detroit has been the impressive rise of these “Little Libraries”, popping up like roses amid the asphalt, and the Detroit Public School System is using the idea to make sure kids cultivate a love of reading by installing them in schools this summer.

Known as the “summer slide”, there is a marked decline in reading during the summer school break. This problem is even more prevalent and detrimental in areas of lower economic stability, where children from book-impoverished neighborhoods are falling behind their peers living in neighborhoods where summer reading materials are plentiful and easy to access.

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Detroit: The Little Library Capital

 

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