Grinch steals a Little Free Library

REDKEY — Someone stole one of this town’s libraries.

“I was so upset,” said Paul Saunders, who established three Little Free Libraries in Redkey in 2016.

The little libraries, which Saunders created from old newspaper vending boxes provided by The Commercial Review, are part of a national phenomenon based upon the “take a book, leave a book” philosophy.

For Redkey, which doesn’t have a public library of its own, the Little Free Libraries provided free access to reading materials at any hour of the day. 

One is located at the gazebo park near the Redkey Post Office, another is located at Westwind Apartments, and the third was located on Spencer Street, right in front of the Saunders home.

It was the Spencer Street box that disappeared.

It happened in mid-October when Redkey was having its fall clean-up. 

Many residents had put things out by the street for pick-up, but before the clean-up crew arrived someone decided to browse through the streets for anything of value.

“Somebody was scrapping,” said Kathy Saunders.

Thieves dumped the books out of the box — which was clearly marked “Redkey Library” — and tossed the steel box into the back of a truck.

“We were just so disgusted,” said Kathy. “There was no confusing it with the junk.”

Neighbors noticed what had happened and started making calls to area scrap metal dealers in hopes of rescuing the library. But their efforts and those of Redkey police came up empty.

“These people were really daring,” said Kathy.

“We weren’t the only ones that got hit,” Paul said.

But they were the only ones to lose a library.

For now, Redkey readers will have to rely on the other two sites. But Saunders has another box — a two-tier one that sold The CR and the Dunkirk News and Sun — in the garage. 

It still needs some work to guarantee that it’s weather-tight, and it will get a fresh coat of paint.

Unfortunately, health problems this winter have slowed work on the replacement. It will be awhile before it can be stocked.

Saunders, however, is still a believer in the concept.

“It works,” he said. “Once you start one, everybody donates. It’s actually a good system.”

In the meantime, the Little Free Libraries website (littlefreelibrary.org) still shows that one is active in Redkey.

Ironically, it’s the one that went missing.