West Jr. High students, staff encourage community to read with new ‘Little Free Library’

West Jr. High students, staff encourage community to read with new ‘Little Free Library’

Book service hopes to create life- long readers, learners

West Memphis School District In an effort to promote reading on the West Junior High campus, students built a Little Free Library located on the school's front lawn.

'We'd heard Ken Stamatis, our literacy lab consultant, talk about the Little Free Libraries and we thought it would be a great addition to our campus,' said West Literacy Coach Ashley Lipe. 'Our goal at West is to create life-long readers and, in turn, lifelong learners. This is just one more step in that direction.'

Students, parents, teachers and members of the neighborhood community can access the Little Free Library whenever they want. They can leave a book for someone to read, they can take a book to read or they can leave one and take one.

West's shop teacher, Cleo Lane, and two of his students, Mitchell Ramsey and Matthew Christensen, built the Little Free Library. The school's art teacher, Michelle Wren, and her art students painted it.

The art students painting were Chloe Marriott, Adrienne Lewis, Haley Hardy, Cayla Sanders, Trinidee Hampton, Jackson Tilley and Emma Fraley.

You can find more information about how the Little Free Library was started on https://littlefreelibrary. org/start/.

Shop students at West Junior High combined to construct a Little Free Library in front of the school building. Students are free to pick out any book in the box. Shop students Mitchell Ramsey and Matthew Christensen constructed the box and art club students who painted the box are Adrienne Lewis, Haley Hardy, Cayla Sanders, Chloe Marriott, Trinittee Hampton, Emma Fraley and Jackson Tilley. Teachers include Michelle Wren, Cleo Lane, Ashley Lipe and principal Charlie Tyler.

Photo by Billy Woods

By Billy Woods