Huntington Beach book lover bridges pandemic gap with Aloha-themed Little Free Library

Huntington Beach resident Carole Suzuki will be the first one to tell you she’s a bit of a book nerd.

The daughter of librarian Henry DuBois, who worked at city and college libraries for 46 years, Suzuki still holds cherished early memories of her father reading to her and her sisters. In fact, she still owns many of the books he read.

“I’ve always had a kind of passion for children’s literature,” she said. “The library was huge for me growing up. I read all the classic series, all the Judy Blumes. Books were just such a part of my childhood.”

Suzuki carried on that tradition for sons Kenny, now 20, and 18-year-old Kyler, reading to them at bedtime and taking them to the library at every opportunity.

A former preschool teacher who is now a social worker for the Regional Center of Orange County, the 51-year-old knows the value of literacy on developing minds and how a good book, in just the right hands, can open new worlds.

So, as her December birthday approached, Suzuki wished to build a Little Free Library outside her home, at 9222 Heatherton Circle, that would be stocked with treasures for young and old alike.

A Little Free Library on the 9200 block of Heatherton Circle in Huntington Beach lets people take and drop off books.

(Raul Roa / Staff Photographer)

She figured during the pandemic and with most libraries limited to curbside pickups and virtual story time, people might miss the serendipity of browsing for titles.

“Right now, we can’t go anywhere, we’re stuck,” she said. “But with reading you can go anywhere.”

Dotting suburban landscapes with more frequency since 2009 — when Wisconsinite Todd Bol crafted a schoolhouse-shaped “library-on-a-stick” as tribute to his schoolteacher mom and spawned a movement — more than 100,000 Little Free Libraries exist worldwide today.

Visitors are invited to take a book and share one, replenishing the inventory organically. Libraries are built, named and registered to a searchable map maintained by the nonprofit at littlefreelibrary.org.

Suzuki’s structure, the “Little Aloha Library,” is one of 24 listed in Huntington Beach. It resembles the home she shares with handyman husband Derek, whose Hawaiian heritage inspired the décor of the homestead as well.

To gussy things up, he covered the library in siding and rigged up some solar lighting, topping things off with a pineapple doorknob. A bottle of hand sanitizer affixed to the post keeps transactions clean.

“Anything we do together always starts off with modest intentions, and then it goes overboard,” Derek Suzuki said of his wife’s enterprise. “I’m all in if it makes her happy.”

A custom stamp inside each book given out at the “Little Aloha Library” in Huntington Beach wishes readers “Aloha and Mahalo!”

(Raul Roa / Staff Photographer)

Carole Suzuki advertises the library on Facebook and Instagram, posting “shelfies” and accepting donations from a growing fanbase, some of whom travel there by vehicle. On the inside cover of each book is a custom-made stamp, a pineapple at its center, that reads: “Provided by Little Aloha Library. Aloha and Mahalo!”

Derek Suzuki described the “Aloha Spirit” as an attitude of respect, love and harmony among all beings.

“It’s a community thing — you love your people, you love one another, you give and give back,” he said, professing how amazed he is that his wife’s library incorporates a similar spirit. “Even though my wife’s a haole (non-native Hawaiian), she’s been incorporated into the tribe.”

DuBois, now retired and living in Fountain Valley, said Friday he’s thrilled his love for books and reading has been passed down to his daughter and to see how the neighborhood is embracing the library.

“It’s really quite an attractive manifestation of the Little Free Library concept,” he said. “I’ve been surprised at how it’s resonated and the response she’s had — I’m really gratified by that.”

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