Just read it: Avid book fan brings free library to Marlington school

Olivia Dangler is a voracious reader. The Lexington Township girl who started eighth grade at Marlington Middle School on Tuesday is also creative, and good with a paint brush.

The 13-year-old, with help from her parents, Logan and Elizabeth Myers, and grandparents Rebecca and Brian Myers, put all of those talents together to create a Little Free Library at Lexington Elementary School.

Installed Aug. 27 at the main entrance to the school, the library has two shelves to hold books available to anyone in the community. It’s affixed to a post that is inside a wooden barrel that holds colorful mum plants.

While the group was planning the structure, they designed it so that the bottom décor can change with the seasons.

Dangler said she first got the idea for the library two years ago, but it really picked up steam this summer after a conversation with Rebecca Myers, who teaches third grade at Lexington Elementary.

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“We were talking about kids who don’t find the pleasure of just sitting around reading in the summer, because she reads all the time,” Rebecca Myers said. “And she said, 'Well how can we change that?' Her first idea was that she wants to start a book club at the middle school. So, I reached out to Mrs. (Jenny) Ritchie, who is a sixth grade (English/language arts) teacher there, and she’s all gung-ho for it. So, that’s on the books to start.

“Then (Olivia) said what about getting books into the hands of kids? And I said, ‘How do you want to do that?’ That’s where she came up with the Lexington Little Free Library. I reached out to our principal here, and the curriculum director, Mrs. (Renee) Kaley, and said what do you think? And they gave us the go-ahead and it all started rolling from there.”

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Brian Myers worked closely with his granddaughter on the design and construction of the piece, which features a box with a pitched roof and doors with glass on the front.

Dangler’s original design, culled from hours spent searching for ideas on Pinterest, included painted book spines on top. Once she saw the size of the project, she switched to large, colored crayons painted along the sides and back.

“The crayons were because they’re bright, so they’ll pop out to people,” Dangler said as she looked at the piece sitting outside the school’s front doors. “The plants were more so I could stay involved with it. It’s just neat to see it change with the seasons. I wanted something that would keep me involved and to keep it nice – to look right.”

Schoolwork sparked love of reading in third grade

Rebecca Myers was Dangler’s third grade teacher at Lexington, which also was the year Dangler developed her love for reading.

“We did this read-a-thon where all the kids compete to see who read the most, and that’s when I really started to love reading,” Dangler said.

She now reads well beyond her grade level, boasting that started to read the Harry Potter books in third grade. Rebecca Myers said they’re at the seventh- or eighth-grade level.

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“She’s always been a good reader,” Rebecca Myers said. “We even had to challenge her with spelling words. Regular third grade spelling words were too easy. I told her, ‘You come up with some words.’”

Logan Myers described Olivia as a “perfect child.”

“We almost have to tell her to loosen up. She reads more books than I ever did,” he said.

Devouring books is a family business for Dangler, Myerses

He said the family spends a lot of money on books, and that Dangler’s hobby has rubbed off. While she said her mom prefers mysteries, Dangler tends to enjoy fiction and history.

“The very first non-fiction book that she fell in love with was ‘The Diary of Anne Frank,’” said Rebecca Myers.

“I read Anne Frank for the third-grade wax museum. I read a lot about her,” Dangler said.

Her favorite books, though, are “Where the Red Fern Grows,” by Wilson Rawls; “The Secret Garden,” by Frances Hodgson Burnett; “Anne of Green Gables,” by Lucy Maud Montgomery; and “Bridge to Terabithia,” by Katherine Paterson. Currently, she’s reading the second book of “The Inheritance Games” series, by Jennifer Lynn Barnes.

Dangler donated some of her own books to the Lexington Little Free Library, and she and her father purchased some at the annual Friends of Rodman Public Library Used Book Sale in early August. They hope that donations from the community will keep the school’s new feature going for a long time.

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It will operate under a donate-take format. Rebecca Myers said visitors can drop off books geared toward children in preschool to about seventh grade at the library any time, “so, if our advanced readers want something they don’t have to have a book that isn’t challenging to them,” Dangler said.

“My main hope was that it will get people excited to read, and they’ll want to read more,” she said. “My hope was just to keep building that love for reading. Make them want to go pick out a book at the store or the library.”

Rebecca Myers said that if people have donations they can get in touch or just bring books and drop them off.

In the meantime, Dangler has another goal she plans to reach. She wants to turn her siblings, twins David and Cecilia, into readers.

“I haven’t succeeded much yet, but I’ll get there,” Dangler said of the Lexington fifth graders.

This article originally appeared on The Alliance Review: Avid reader Olivia Dangler brings free library to Marlington school