Little Free Library

I was walking in my neighborhood late last year when I discovered a Little Free Library a few blocks from home. I stopped and looked through the books, enchanted. When I arrived home, I looked for the website that I’d seen on a little plaque attached at the top of the library: littlefreelibrary.org

I was ready to go! Jeff and I have a friend who can build anything, our friend Jim. So we asked Jim to build the library for us, and within a couple of weeks, we had our library, perched on a cement post on the strip of land we call “the panhandle,” that’s part of our property.

From the very first days of our hosting the Little Free Library, books began to appear. Jeff and I supplied a couple of books to get started. One day soon after, as I watched from the kitchen window, a car stopped, a woman I did not know got out, and she walked over to the Little Free Library to deposit some books. We were live!

I had followed up on my research, too, and so I went to littlefreelibrary.org and ordered a plaque that would put my library on the map. The Little Free Library that we are hosting is #125791. Little Free Library #125791 appears on a map on the website, and now we’re connected to other folks who host a Little Free Library in their neighborhood. I’m happy to be present to my community in this way, in a way that is important to me, and to Jeff: we’re both avid readers, mostly of nonfiction.

A few days later, I posted a picture of our Little Free Library on the Facebook page for Little Free Libraries, and I was set to go! I’m still receiving notes of welcome from other Little Free Librarians!

The story doesn’t end there, however. I was all set to go into a ZOOM meeting last week, when the doorbell to our house rang. I had to hurry clear to the other end of the house to answer, and I checked out the window before I opened the door, to make sure the door-ringer was still there. A young man I didn’t recognize was waiting for me to answer. When I did, he asked me if I was the person who was hosting the Little Free Library on the street. I told him that yes, I was.

He wanted to let me know that he’d found a book, The Freedom to Be, by A. H. Almaas, in the Little Free Library on our street. He had read the book. And – he said, looking into my eyes: “it changed my life.” He told me that he was on his way to meet with a teacher, an adherent of Almaas, right after his stop at my house. I had read a bit of Almaas over the years, and I told him that. We exchanged names. Before he turned to go, I suggested he stop over to see me again some time, when we could talk more. Smiling at me before he walked back down the stairs, he said yes.

Our Little Free Library! photo by Mary Elyn Bahlert, 4/2024