(WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- The Ford Heights public library closed a quarter of a century ago. On Tuesday, the south suburb got four tiny libraries.
The free-standing boxes of books encourage readers to “take one, give one.”
Each little library has about 40 books. The boxes themselves were built by boys incarcerated at the Illinois Youth Center, a medium-security facility in Harrisburg, in Southern Illinois.
Heidi Mueller, the director of the Illinois Department of Juvenile Justice, says about a dozen boys, ages 14 to 20, worked on the little libraries.
"One of the boys told me that this project really made him feel good because he knew that it would be helping kids in the community and would give them a chance, maybe, to avoid some of the mistakes that he had made,” Mueller said.
The books were donated by the non-profit Open Books.
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