B.C. senior responds to vandalism with creative kindness

Sawatsky Sign-Off: Library Fixes "I just did it." Adam finds out how a senior responded to vandalism with kindness and creativity.

Roger Barker was looking forward to exchanging a book at one of the Little Free Libraries that had been erected in his neighbourhood, until he found it vandalized.

“Some person had thrown a burning book into it,” Roger says. “It had burnt all the floor.”

Then Roger discovered another nearby book exchange was damaged.

“The door was broken,” Roger recalls. “Glass all over the floor.”

That was followed by visiting a third little library that was destroyed.

“All the was left of it was a stump it used to sit on,” Roger frowns.

Roger says he felt frustrated and heartbroken, and then, unexpectedly, inspired.

“I thought, if I can do something here, I will,” Roger says.

The thing was, Roger had never fixed anything like this before.

“I’ve basically got a drill and a few screwdrivers,” Roger says.

He lacked tools, knowledge, and had little space on his apartment patio to attempt something so substantial.

“My mind was muddled on how I was going to achieve this,” Roger says.

But after getting some support from a couple friends and neighbours, Roger went to work.

He fixed the first two libraries, before spending six weeks constructing a third one from scratch.

“I don’t know how,” Roger laughs. “I just did it.”

More than build a simple box for books, Roger figured out how to attach a shingle to his library’s peaked roof, and hang a hinged door with glass front, before embellishing it with inspiration.

“This one says, ‘If music be the food of love, play on,’” Roger says, pointing to the wooden words that frame the library door.

It’s a musical quote from Shakespeare, that can be accompanied by the toy piano Roger placed in the little library’s attic.

“It’s got an handle,” Roger says, gently pushing aside the toy ladybug on the piano’s bench, to start turning the handle.

“You can play a little tune.”

There’s also a sign that says, "Where flowers bloom, so does hope."

“Hope is my wife’s middle name,” Roger says. “She gives me hope.”

More than hope — if you take a look at the kudos on the local online community pages — Roger’s acts of creative kindness are inspiring a sense of certainty. It’s like one of the choose-your-own adventure books that you can take out of the little library.

We can decide to make a story that begins with destruction end with the creation of something even better.

“Anything is achievable,” Roger smiles.