NORTH MIAMI, Fla. – The mayor of North Miami unveiled "The Little Library" Wednesday in hopes of getting more children in the community access to books.
The library is actually a small box where children can get a book for free and then recycle it by putting it back after they read it.
"It is awesome. I love it," Sofia Vasquez said. "Sometimes you pick out stories that are really funny."
"It is fun. You can read a lot of books and it is like, some are fun, some are happy, some are sad, some are mad," another girl, Isabella Reyes, said.
Research shows that there are about 13 books for every child in middle-income neighborhoods, but in low income neighborhoods, there are about 300 children for every book.
City officials said the best way to get children to read is by easy access to books.
"Each one will morph to take the character of the community," North Miami Library director Lucia Gonzalez said. "If people are reading these kinds of books or if they have young children, that is the kind of book that is going to end up in that little library."
The mayor's wife saw the unique idea at a U.S. Conference of Mayors.
"It is not just going to the library," Patricia Joseph said. "They could just be walking up and down the street here and then they will pick a book. They may have a book at home that they want to donate and they can put a book back. It is an exchange and it is an exchange of knowledge."
"We hope to open about six of them in the next few weeks," North Miami Mayor Smith Joseph said.
Right now, the city has an inventory of 200 books, but you can help boost their book count.
Click here for information about Local 10 News' Big Book Drive and how you can donate books in your community.
Books are also always accepted at all Miami-Dade and Broward County public libraries.