GoodHeart | My Free Likkle Bookhut offers free books to encourage reading
Published:Saturday | December 7, 2024 | 12:05 AMAinsworth Morris/Staff Reporter
In an era where physical books are phasing out, Shanique Sinclair, literacy advocate and brainchild of the Book Fairy Festival, is on a mission to keep physical books alive and free for grabs in Jamaica.
Her passion is so strong that, in recognition of her birthday in August, she opened the ‘My Free Likkle Bookhut’ at Dubwise Cafe in St Andrew. She hopes to build on her dream of seeing more readers across the island, leaving books for others to choose from and, hopefully, returning to find new ones.
“The whole idea of the My Free Likkle Bookhut is for people to be able to leave a book [and] take a book, and you can take a book without leaving a book. We want to be able to spread the joy of reading to people all across Jamaica, so [we] want people to be able to have access to books, and that’s where My Free Likkle Bookhut came in,” Sinclair told GoodHeart last weekend, when she hosted a book exchange lyme at the My Free Likkle Bookhut, where readers of all ages were encouraged to select and drop off books, while getting the opportunity to interact with Sinclair.
“We have persons who come and they donate books so that other persons who do not have access to books – or even if they have access to books– can come in and take a book and expand their reading. That’s the aim of My Likkle Free Bookhut. I feel like every book idea that I’ve had has been living in me for years. After putting into place the [first] Book Festival in 2024, once the ball started rolling with that, we decided to put My Free Likkle Bookhut into place, and I don’t know where to definitively say where this [idea] came into my brain. It’s been lingering there, but everything streamed and rolled from 2023 into 2024.”
SHARING THE IMPORTANCE OF READING
Sinclair shared that her love for wanting to share the importance of reading started when she was pursuing her bachelor’s degree with a major in literatures in English.
“I really noticed that there is a great deficit in Jamaica in terms of what types of books are available, and also, a lot of persons indicated that they really want to get into reading, but they just do not have the resources to purchase books, so I gave that a lot of thought and said, ‘What if we had a platform or avenue for persons to be able to access books for free?’ and I spoke with my book team/my book friends, and said, ‘We’re going to structure this thing. We’re going to create this ‘My Free Likkle Bookhut’ so people can have access to free books to read and share with others,” Sinclair said.
Prior to launching My Likkle Free Bookhut, Sinclair created the Book Fairy Festival, an immersive three-day literary wellness event in Jamaica. Held at The Summit between July 25 and 28 this year, the festival will return in 2025 from July 11 to 13.
Although the festival received some support, it operated at a loss, and the donation from the proceeds that was initially promised cannot be made. This is a major hurdle Sinclair hopes to overcome after the 2025 staging.
“When you are starting something new and something not mainstream in Jamaica, it can be daunting and there are definitely moments where you feel discouraged. I’ve had those moments where I ask, ‘Is this really making sense?’ but then, so many persons who had free access to My Free Likkle Bookhut or who have attended the Book Fairy Festival have expressed how life changing it has been for them; how it has opened up their appetite for reading, what that has done for their mental health, and when I get feedback like that, it is just what I need to push forward. It really motivates me to continue the journey and to motivate my team of friends and family who are supporting each other as well in this journey,” Sinclair explained.
She added, “A lot of what we have done has been out of pocket, and though it has already impacted very positively, we can only go so far. We are a small group of people who are trying to enact big dreams, but we can’t do it without the help of potential sponsors and persons who can donate to the cause.”
For the next staging of the Book Fairy Festival, those who want updates can register on the Instagram profile @BookFairyFestival or the website www.bffja.com for early notifications and ticket release details.