Little Library Lollapalooza

Public libraries carry much more than books—music, magazines, artwork, puzzles, games, and ukuleles—so I shouldn’t be surprised that Little Libraries (those little boxes ‘planted’ in your neighborhood) are just as diverse.

While attending a neighborhood fish fry with my mom, I met a woman with a dog treat ‘little library.’ The ‘library’ included water, an extra leash, and poop bags:

Then I read about a little library of rocks. Very cool!

I became a little obsessed, wondering what other “little libraries” were out there, and found these:

A Little Library of Matchbox Cars…

A Little Library of Yarn…

A Little Library of Food…

A Little Library of Herbs…

A Little Library of Art…

A Little Library of Seeds…

A Little Library of Beach Toys…

A Little Library of “Kindness” Rocks…

A Little Library of Sleds…

Perhaps the most charming was the little library created by a girl worried about the dogs in the park not having anything to retrieve. She created a Little Library of Sticks.

I’ve had two exciting successes at the Little Library that I manage for a neighbor. I bought a paperback copy of The Complete Works of Jane Austen at the library book sale for $.50, then put it in the Little Library. A week later it was gone! I almost fainted with excitement—someone was discovering that an author who wrote over 200 years ago can still be relevant. I put in one of my favorite NF books, The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu. A week later it was gone! Someone was now learning the amazing story of over 300,000 centuries-old manuscripts that were smuggled out of Timbuktu, Mali, right under the nose of the Taliban.

Thanks for reading, and remember this helpful advice from Groucho Marx:

Outside of a dog, a book is Man’s Best Friend. (Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read.)