The Division 8 Little Library was established in 2017 to make books available to readers who found themselves at the courthouse without anything to read while waiting for the justice to get made. The shelves were kept stocked with an eclectic mix of titles from a variety of literary genres. On any given day readers could find all-time favorites by Harper Lee or John Irving, classic crime fiction from Agatha Christie or Arthur Conan Doyle; riveting historical fiction from Bernard Cornwell or Patrick O’Bryan; lawyer books by John Mortimer or John Grisham; a great western by Charles Portis or Larry McMurtry; or something wonderfully weird by Douglas Adams, Tom Robbins or Hunter S. Thompson.
Affixed to the library shelf (made in the 1940s by inmates at the Eddyville State Penitentiary) was a sign that read: "If you find something you think you might enjoy – take it! Read it and bring it back or read it and pass it along to someone else to read. The point, to the extent there is one, is that reading isn’t an obligation or a chore- it’s a gift!" Although it was closed when Judge Chauvin retired in 2022, over 700 books were gifted (and hopefully re-gifted) from the Little Library. Judge Chauvin is currently looking to find a new place (and a new shelf) to carry on the mission of feeding the minds of hungry readers with choice literary morsels. |
In a related story ...A COVID-inspired little-er brother of the Division 8 Little Library, during the pandemic Judge Chauvin and his family started the Carl's Books for Kids Mini-Library. Curated by their pig, Carl (a voracious reader but with a distinctly porcine literary pallet). The Carl's Library continues to be open from the first of spring until the last of summer and is stocked with children's classics to include, as you might expect, If You Give A Pig A Pancake, Olivia, and of course, Charlotte's Web.
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