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What would yours look like? By the wonderful Grace Farris.
P.S. An easy summer bucket list and which era are you in?
My Ideal Little Free Library
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Just relocated for my husband’s job to the upper Midwest and while my quaint new town doesn’t boast an art museum or a big university or any of my family members (all qualities of my hometown), it does have little libraries all over! I passed one today that was a neighborhood garden share. It made me smile and wonder what the contents will be come winter. Hand knitted gloves? Canned tomatoes or pickles?
Perhaps this is relevant.
A place where I often walk my dog, just outside my town, a big plot of state land that has woods and creeks and many winding trails, has many delights. Little bridges built by people that use the area. In the winter, unseen hands decorate the trees with sparkly holiday ornaments. And there’s one old cottonwood tree with a big hollow in the middle where folks leave art! Beautiful framed photos. Little painted canvases. And delightful little handmade pottery bowls. One day I found a photo of one of my favorite hikes, it now hangs in my living room.
People are very friendly, we all let our dogs play as long as they’d like, and share sorrows when you see a familiar family, but they are missing their old dog. It’s just such a special place and would be perfect for a LFL, my ideal spot.
Sasha, this sounds like such a peaceful place full of community.
The note about noticing a familiar family touched my heart. I think its so meaningful when we can notice each others grief like this. Its such a blessing of community.
A romance only Little Free Library EXISTS!! And it looks like a little Hansel and Gretel cottage. Last time I checked, there was a Jenny Han (of The Summer I Turned Pretty) in there, and I picked up a fun historical romance. Come visit Sunset Park, Brooklyn, Grace!
I just learned there is a Little Free Library app that shows LFLs near your location, similar to Google maps! I downloaded it and make a habit of visiting little libraries in my town and when visiting other places and now discover new neighborhoods as well as books. Who knew?! Amazing!
Yes, and you can register your Little Free Library! You receive a plaque to put on your LFL, and yours is numbered and shown on their world map.
that is so cool, tracy!
Love all these ideas! Celebrate reading, always! My LFL would lean towards Mystic realism,,,Alice Hoffman, Sara Addison Allen…books that are feel good, thought provoking , no gratuitous violence , sex or profanity…..books that make you smile and cry, in a good way!
I love SAA, I never hear anyone recommend her! And she creates such delightful, magical little worlds. Thank you for the reminder, I should see if she’s got a title i haven’t read, or reread a favorite.
Ever stay at The Library Hotel? They have a lovely book themed weekend getaway at the NYC location and easy proximity to book nook gardens, themed bookstores and such.
Highly recommend a one night (or more) book lover stay.
https://www.libraryhotel.com/
We have one and I love to put small toys and art supplies my kids have outgrown in there. It’s a great and easy way to pass on toys and art supplies that otherwise I’d probably just throw away. They are always taken in a day or two.
My ideal Little Free Library would somehow incorporate a third space, or a free public gathering space. I would love to have benches and a small garden combined with a mini library and bus stop. A water fountain, charging station, phone booth, bike pump… I want to see all types of public resources grouped around a place people can actually spend some time resting.
We have several little free libraries throughout our neighborhood, and I love to visit them on my walks and see if anything new strikes my fancy. My friends made me a little free library out of an old newspaper box, and I love when I see people browsing. Some neighbors have even created little free libraries of other things like plant starts, garden veggies, and my favorite, puzzles! My daughter and I love to borrow a puzzle, complete it, and put it back for others to enjoy. Little libraries represent everything I love: community, sharing, books, and love.
Mine would be look like a little seaside cottage and be wrapped in fairy lights that come on when the light fades in the evenings. It’d be full of beautiful children’s books and memoirs or biographies of un(der)celebrated women and brown and queer folks. Add in a few cookbooks or books on raising down-to-earth, connected kids in this crazy world and that sounds about right to me. Might just have to get to work on this vision…
I would call my bookbox s Little Free Library, but when we installed it, the Little Free Library website was charging $80 for a pin on their map and the little metal plate and the stickers. Do you know how many used books I can buy at the thrift store for $80?!
I am the sole manager of our bookbox. I painted it, and I fill it. I take out all the religious material. I have a religion, and I go to church every week, and I have an active relationship with God, but I just don’t think my bookbox is the way to share.
My mom also has a bookbox on the other side of the US, and she says that people never take religious books. Thus, she put a geocache record inside one for her bookbox. :D
I donate the religious books to the thrift store, who then grinds them up into tiny pieces if they don’t sell. I can only hope that thrift stores recycle their ground-up books. Sometimes, I just recycle them instead.
All the best banned and challenged books.
A favorite travel memory of mine involves a little free library! My friend and I were in Santa Fe for a long weekend and were walking around a cute neighborhood and found a little free library. He picked out a copy of the Great Gatsby. He flipped though the pages and out came…two fifty dollar bills! I always wondered if it was from someone who wanted to reward someone for reading, as a nice surprise. This reminded me I’ve been meaning to slip some cash in a copy of a favorite book to pay it forward.
!!!!!!!!
I used to live in a small, pretty gruff town. My daughter and I relocated to a beautiful, progressive town on a lake and we’re within walking distance from 6 little libraries. What a treasure of a life it is to have a dedicated basket in our kitchen of books we can gift to our neighbors, and to be able to ask, “Should we go to the little library at the house with the gigantic cat on the porch, the one on the way to the ice cream shop, or the little library next to the giant year-long skeleton?”
Sounds lovely!
We made a “Little Art Museum” instead of a Little Free Library, because there are already quite a few in our neighborhood. We populate it with exhibits of paintings, sculpture, rocks, sticks, and twigs by my six year old and the other neighborhood kids. We rotate things out infrequently, but periodically, and have been overjoyed to hear from other neighbors that they have rerouted their evening walks to ‘see if there is a new exhibit up.’ Also a GREAT way to manage all the art projects that come home from school!!!
This is so sweet! I would definitely go out of my way to visit the kids’ art gallery.
That’s such a wonderful idea!
Some very creative neighbors did something like this a few years back. But their little art museum is filled with miniatures. Like a doll house with tiny paintings and sculptures and museum visitors admiring the art. They have a donation box where you can add items for their collection. I adore it!
You should see how they’ve decorated their chicken coop and rabbit pen. They also have THE most amazing Halloween display as well as the cutest and sweetest dog.
Lovely, lovely people!!
I so need a picture of this to see how it works! How big is it? Is it built out of wood, on a post, like the libraries? Inquiring minds (with their own school-age kids!) need to know!
Ooh I love this! I regret that our societies do not highlight much art made by children and what they fo find interesting and worth of our attention.
Do you live in Houston?…
If you live in Houston (Woodland Heights) I enjoy walking past your Little Art Museum every day :)
Funny, the other day I was just thinking of putting a free library up in my classroom.
Don’t know if there are any other teachers out here who did this? I’m a bit worried as to how the school library might take it, but on the other hand it might not bite each other?
(I teach ESL in middle school, in Europe)
I think that’s a great idea. As a retired teacher I know there are many children who do not have books in their home. It’s a chance for them to have a book of their own.
In my neighborhood (east coast US), LFLs are quite common outside elementary schools–as in, the school will set one up for the local community, in addition to the public libraries and the school lending library. A LFL inside a classroom sounds like a fun idea, especially if you are focused on books in English because of your subject, with the school library having a broader collection. The school librarian or library admin team might even have suggestions for organizing and set-up. Good luck!
I just received a little free library as a gift from my husband for our anniversary and am so excited to get started. It’s so great to read all of these comments! How timely. My neighborhood is a bit remote so I am hoping it becomes a way of uniting the small, but busy area.
Our neighborhood is located in an urban downtown historic district. We have the most amazing individual in the neighborhood who organizes the summer reading program for the kids in our neighborhood. This year, the theme was centered around our neighborhood park. Two ways for kids to earn raffle tickets outside of the book prizes: 1.) paint a rock to make someone happy and leave it at the little library and 2) leave a happy note for a neighbor inside the library. My heart.
This comment section is the best. My CoJ friends don’t just have opinions about Free Little Libraries. They HAVE Free Little Libraries, named in honor of their pet pot-bellied pigs!!! Swoon. xox
Last week I walked past a Little Free Library in my neighborhood and it had a bag of small seashells in it.
Then this morning I walked by it again and saw that it now had a copy of “Mein Kampf” leaning on a copy of “Autobiography of an Orgasm.” What in the beejezus.
Philly is always surprising me.
Disgust at the other title but Autobiography of an Orgasm is pretty good. I met the author many years ago and she was such a chill and interesting person that I checked it out in spite of the title. Surprising memoir on all the ways we are shaped by trauma and joy alike.
beautiful! mostly, i wish mine contained no self-help books from the 90’s, outdated travel guides, or diet books. no one wants these! they aren’t a gift, they’re recycling!!! :)
When I see diet books, evangelical devotionals, the same tired self help or corporate books (wasn’t every office worker given a copy of “Who Moved my Cheese” at some point?) in Little Free Libraries, I take those books out and drop them at Goodwill or into the recycling bin.
My favorite thing is to put beauty product samples (good stuff only!!!) in our Little Free Library! They always get scooped up so quick, and it makes me very happy to rehome things I don’t need!
Honestly, I should be doing a dozen other things right now, but this idea has completely captured my attention.
If I had my way, my Little Free Library wouldn’t just be a box of books on a stick. It would be a small landmark—quietly thoughtful, a little weathered, and full of heart. The structure would be made of reclaimed wood, something strong like oak, faded from sun and time into a soft, silvery gray. I picture a glass front door, simple and sturdy, so you can see the titles inside—books with real weight, like Simon Winchester’s The Man Who Loved China or Mark Kurlansky’s Havana. Books that take you places, that make you think.
The roof would extend just enough to give a little shade—because this is Arizona, after all—and there’d be a spot on the side where desert lizards could gather, maybe with a small bowl that catches rainwater. A nod to the environment, something respectful of the lives that pass by, human or not.
At night, a small solar-powered light would flick on—not bright, just a soft glow to remind people it’s still there, still open. A place for stories, for ideas, for moments of quiet connection in a busy world.
It wouldn’t draw attention to itself, but if you walked past it often enough, you’d start to feel like it belonged. Like it was part of the neighborhood. Like it knew your name.
OK, poetry!
Beautiful! This made me tear up <3
I want to keep reading, simple yet so lovely!
A little light! My heart. Adding this to our little free library this weekend. What a lovely idea!
Beautiful ! I was hoping to read something like this when I read the title of the post.
This past fall, after talking about it for years, we finally posted a little library on our side fence, adorned by wisteria and flush crepe myrtle blooms. It is called Rosebud’s Book Nook, named after our beloved pot-bellied pig who gets a lot of love from our neighborhood. It is heavily stocked with nature books for all ages, gardening magazines, backyard scavenger hunt cards, animal bookmarks, seed packets, polished rocks, and toy lizards, frogs, and bugs. It brings me so much joy, and has had such a sweet response from our community. I look so forward to seeing what gets gifted like, 3D printed pink pig planters, friendship bracelets, a well-loved, vintage French pocket dictionary- and my absolute favorite- thank you notes to Rosebud written by the littlest of hands!
Our little library was built from local library discards. Now the Library staff just txts me when they have a bunch. 8 yrs going strong. We even send community reminders out on FB.
Most popular time is summer and most popular titles are suspense, cookbooks and short stories. Paperbacks only. My husband built the original box from old wooden palettes. The neighbors son painted it as an art project.
Happy to read the enthusiasm. I’ve shared the link many times on CoJ.
The Little Free Library of my dreams would have a spindly, sugar-topped turret for butterflies and moths, velvety shou sugi ban walls wheatpasted with itty-bitty pigeon-propaganda posters, a shelf of local field guides, and a poetry-chapbook FEAST. Critter-dictionaries and atlases for one’s own heart all day.
Mine would have lots of queer novels and gardening books, and a little section with free native seeds harvested from my garden. Made with reclaimed materials from my pile of scrap wood, and painted with whatever leftover paint I have in the garage, because free is the best price.
Ok, I’m newly into romance! Any recs for spicy, contemporary reads? So far, I have liked Ali Hazelwood books.
I am new to the romance world too and I don’t know how spicy they are but I’ve liked Carley Fortune, Katherine Center & Sarah Adams. I know Emily Henry and Abby Jimenez fit that description and have lots of fans too!
I have read and loved lots of Devney Perry’s romances. Steamy, but palatable in my opinion. Also, Ashley Manley. She has written four romances. All of them are well written, good spice, and the characters deal with deeper issues. Five stars.
Lucy Score, Lyla Sage, and Elise Silver … if you like a bit of mystery with your romance, check out Catherine Cowles.
Tessa Bailey hands down!! Julia Quinn and Tessa Dare for historical.
Jasmine Guillory. Tessa Bailey. You’re welcome.
If you like spicy and heart you should read the Brown sisters trilogy by Talia Hibbert.
Katherine Center, Abby Jimenez, Jasmine Guillory, Carley Fortune. From Taylor Jenkins Reid: One true loves, Maybe in another life, After I do. Josie Silver, Christina Lauren,
The Hating Game, Sally Thorne is one of my favorites.
Also second Emily Henry and Abby Jimenez. Mhairi McFarlane is another favorite, they’re not super spicy but the characters are great and the dialogue is so zippy and funny.
My ideal free library would magically always have the book I have on hold at the library where I’m 156th on the list!
YES!!
lol. Wouldn’t that be a dream!
Omg this happened to me a few months ago. I was on a very long library waitlist for “The God of the Woods” and not a day later it was magically in my little free library?! I’m still riding that high.
Ha, yes!
Last year I painted a children’s free little library and hosted a ribbon-cutting ceremony for it on my daughter’s first birthday. All the neighborhood kids brought a book to put in it instead of gifts! I love being “the house with the little children’s library out front.”
It was my grand plan to be able to move through books we’re ready to part with but that backfired since my 4 year old son loves checking what’s new all the time. Last night we read a French translation picture book of Disney’s Ratatouille to him at bedtime (we don’t speak french.)
100 agree! If I could add one thing – because I’ve been spoiled by my wonderful neighbors – a mini box of dog treats (they make my golden so happy!) and a water bowl below for hot summer days.
oh thank you so much for this idea!! I’m going to add this to mine!!
My dog believes all Little Free Libraries have dog treats! We pass at least three on our daily walks, and he stops at each one. Only one actually provides treats, but he’s an eternal optimist that the others will get with the program. :)
I like a mix of mysteries, literary fiction, and memoirs — and a lower-height shelf for children’s books in my ideal library. I am spoiled by how many just like this I can walk to.
I would add literary fiction with notes in the margin, to which I could respond. And then, like the best meet cutes, we’d both arrive at the library at the same time, see the book, and just *know* and become bosom book buddies.
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