Walk inside Third Place Books, the grand bookstore in the heart of Lake Forest Park, Wash., and you’ll find droves of books — and much more.
Since 1998, the bookstore, and its adjoined nonprofit gathering space, Third Place Commons, have offered residents of the forested suburb 20 minutes north of Seattle an inviting community hub, complete with reading nooks, a meeting room, a food court, and a stage for performances.
As of December, there’s another fun addition: an intricately painted Little Free Music Library, a riff off the more than 1,100 whimsical book-sharing boxes installed throughout Seattle’s neighborhoods.
The Little Free Music Library, roughly the shape and size of a standing longcase clock, is stocked with vinyl, CDs, and cassette tapes to be shared. It was handmade and gifted to the Commons by 17-year-old high school senior Araya Trujillo.
“It's incorporating my love for music into building this tangible thing that I can leave behind,” Trujillo said.
Combining passions
The building and installation of this Little Free Music Library is one of the last steps in Trujillo’s journey to becoming an Eagle Scout, the highest rank in Scouting America.
Scouting America, previously known as the Boy Scouts of America, first opened to girl participants in 2019. That was a few years before a friend invited Trujillo to come to one of her troop meetings.
“I just carved a spoon out of a block of wood. That's just what I did that night. I went home and I told my mom, I was like, ‘Look what I made,’” Trujillo said. “And I was like, ‘This is so freaking cool. I need to join Boy Scouts right now.’”
She did, and in the last few years, she’s joined the leadership ranks of her 60-girl Troop 681. Trujillo is now her troop’s senior patrol leader, an elected position that facilitates troop meetings and activities. At the urging of one of her adult troop leaders, she’s going for the elite Eagle Scout rank, too.
“That's something that like is not super common, especially as a girl, and [I’ll] hang on to that title for the rest of my life,” Trujillo said.
As part of a long list of tasks to achieve this rank, Trujillo is required to plan and create a service project that benefits the community. When her uncle, who works in construction, suggested she create a free little library for physical music media, Trujillo thought it was a “genius” idea that blends her community-mindedness with her lifelong passion for music.
Music is for sharing
Trujillo built the library with her family’s help and the woodworking skills she learned as a scout. Her friends and fellow scouts helped with the building and painting, too. As for the music itself, she filled it with everything from U2 CDs to Antonio Vivaldi vinyl, which she collected via donations and a trip to the record store.
“I just picked some random fun things, like even things that I didn't know I just thought looked cool,” Trujillo said. “One of my main goals with it was that I could get people making their own music to print out their demos and put it in there.”
Trujillo grew up enjoying music with her dad, playing violin and guitar, and in 9th grade she began volunteering at The Vera Project, the all-ages music venue near the Seattle Center. Through her North Seattle high school, Nathan Hale, she is involved in radio and in a vibrant scene of teen musicians who play emo and screamo music at The Vera Project. She also plays guitar in a band with her friends called Cardboard Box Club.
“I love going to see live music. It's my favorite activity,” Trujillo said.
Trujillo’s involvement in the youth live music scene, and her love of discovering new music, made her think others might enjoy the Little Free Music Library. The next step was to find a good place to install it.
Then, last summer, another Lake Forest Park business called Vulpine Taproom held a trivia night to benefit Third Place Commons. Silje Sodal, executive director of Third Place Commons, went to support and speak at the event.
At the event, Trujillo’s mother, Lina, approached Sodal and asked if Third Place Commons might be open to housing her daughter’s Free Little Music Library. Sodal, who started as executive director in 2024, was enthusiastic to connect with Trujillo and hear more about her vision.
“The Commons is a space where that's important; connecting around shared interests and passions,” Sodal said.
Sodal said she specifically admired Trujillo’s goal of providing something interesting to her teenage peers. Since the pandemic, Sodal said the number of kids and teens hanging around the Commons has dropped. The way she sees it, offering this free music library full of physical media — which is “cool” among Generation Z and younger, according to The Washington Post — may be one good way to get those numbers back up.
“We definitely want to do as much as we can to engage the teens and youth in our community,” Sodal said.
Take one, leave one
The Free Little Music Library stands to the right of the large, curtained stage inside the Commons. On the wall above it, colorful, laminated instructions explain how to use the library, introduce Trujillo, and share her simple wish: “Enjoy the music—and keep paying it forward.”
A month in, and Sodal said the community response to the library has been “fantastic.” She frequently sees people digging through titles and taking things home for a listen.
“I think all the records are gone right now," Sodal said, adding that she hopes more members of the community will continue to add CDs, cassettes, and vinyl to the library.
Trujillo, like most high school seniors, is looking ahead right now: to finally achieving Eagle Scout rank, graduating, and studying audio engineering in college. But, when she does pause and reflect, she’s optimistic the Little Free Music Library will be a well-loved fixture at Third Place Commons for years to come.
“I really hope that people can find something new in it and pick up some sort of new genre that they fall in love with...or drop off their own music, and give somebody else a new appreciation for new music,” she said. “I just really want people to be able to experience all kinds of music and broaden their horizons."
