NORTH HAMPTON – A new, much smaller library has opened up in North Hampton. As part of the increasingly popular Little Free Library movement, Michael and Emily Brindamour installed a wooden box in their Post Road yard and filled it with some of their extra books.

They hope that community members will stop by, take some books, and leave some of their own.

“The idea is that people from the community will bring books to share,” Emily Brindamour said.

The mission of Little Free Library, as stated on its website, is “to promote literacy and love of reading by building free book exchanges worldwide and to build a sense of community as we share skills, creativity and wisdom across generations.”

The movement got started in 2009 when Todd Bol of Wisconsin built a model of a one room schoolhouse as a tribute to his mother, a former school teacher who loved reading, the website says. He filled it with books and put it in his front yard.

After getting an enthusiastic response from neighbors and friends, he built several more, each with a sign that said “FREE BOOKS,” and gave them away. Soon he joined forces with Rick Brooks of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and in 2012 Little Free Library was officially established as a Wisconsin nonprofit corporation.

After hearing about Little Free Library online, the Brindamours, avid readers, decided to give it a shot.

“We like books,” Emily Brindamour said. “Our six-year-old daughter homeschools, and we read a lot.”

As of now, their collection is mostly kid’s books, but they aren’t opposed to expanding the genre, she said.

In the first few days, they received 12-15 visitors, Brindamour said, and they’re certainly hoping for more. The sign they have up is small, so people have to be in a car or walking by to notice it, she said.

In addition to setting up a Facebook Group, named Little Free Library #24757 (North Hampton, NH Community), they’ve had the Portsmouth Library tweet about their location to get the word out.

Brindamour hopes their library will inspire others to set up shop, too, in addition to getting more people interested in reading. Another Little Free Library, #7874, is currently set up in the carved out shelves of an old tree on Winnacunnet Road in Hampton.

Those interested in having their own must pay a fee to get a charter number from Little Free Library and can either purchase or build their own box. There are more than 25,000 already set up – with numbers growing every week.

“We’re excited for people to stop on by,” Brindamour said. And they don’t have to worry about staying to chat with her, she joked.