Book Boxes

One of my favourite ways to get a new book is from a book box. If you don’t know, a book box is a cabinet filled with used books, usually located in a public place, or even on someone’s lawn. There’s only one rule for book boxes-you can take a book for free if you leave a book in exchange. These boxes are a great way to get rid of old books, and to find new ones. Best of all, you’ll always discover something different, since the boxes are public! In this post, I’ll be showing you a few examples of boxes in my community.

This book box is located in front of someone’s house, and was one of the first book boxes in my town. Arguably, it’s the one that I use the most, too. As you can see, it’s decorated with scrabble letters. Many other book boxes incorporate interesting designs and decorations to be eye-catching, so that more people will use the box.

This next book box is located at the Northumberland Centre for Individual Studies, formerly Grant Sine Public School. Students at NIS built this box to help give back to the community.

The final two boxes I’m going to show you both located in Downtown Cobourg,

First, we have 2 pictures of the same book box. As you might have guessed from the sign in the second picture, it is located at the Police Station. Another thing to note, in the first picture you can tell that this box is getting pretty worn. These boxes are exposed to all elements, as well as human nature, resulting in their unfortunate states.

Finally, we have two pictures of the book box at the beach. Thankfully, this box is seasonal, so it’s in a better shape. In my opinion, this is probably one of the best book boxes around in terms of use. Every day during the summer, there are hundreds of people passing it, on their way to the beach. Another thing I like about this box is that it’s one of the most likely boxes to have children’s books, considering that it’s next to a beach AND a trailer park.

Besides the ones I’ve shown, there are tons of book boxes locally and around the world. So, next time you’re done with a book, consider donating it to a book box instead of throwing it away.