Submitted photo Bascom Elementary School librarian Stacey Biery and kindergarten student Everleigh Maurer stand beside the new Little Free Library at the elementary school on the LaBrae Local Schools campus.

Bascom Elementary School librarian Stacey Biery and kindergarten student Everleigh Maurer stand beside the new Little Free Library at the elementary school on the LaBrae Local Schools campus. [/caption]LEAVITTSBURG — The LaBrae Local School District has opened its first Little Free Library outside Bascom Elementary School on North Leavitt Road.

Visitors can take a book to read, but they also should leave books to share.

Bascom’s Little Free Library joins an international move ment to “share books, bring people together and create communities of readers,” said Stacey Biery, school librarian.

Worldwide, there are more than 200,000 small, front‐yard book exchanges in more than 181 countries — from Iceland to Tasmania to Pakistan.

The Little Free Library at Bascom was provided through a grant from LittleFreeLibrary.org. Along with Biery, Bascom custodian John Maurer and Joe Trimbur, who teaches art at LaBrae intermediate and middle schools, helped get the Little Free Library ready for students, families and community members to use.

Trimbur painted the box’s panels.

“Our Little Free Library doesn’t just belong to us, it belongs to the entire community,” Biery said. “It’s our hope that this Little Free Library will bring a little more joy, a little more connection and a whole lot more books to our community.”

The Little Free Library nonprofit organization has been honored by the Library of Congress, the National Book Foundation and the American Library Association. Reader’s Digest named the program one of the “50 Surprising Things We Love about America.”