The Summer of Books.

 

This is the story of how Larry almost killed me. My neighbor bud Brooke and I got it in our heads that we wanted to start a Free Library (aka Take a Book/Leave a Book) revolution in our neighborhood. OK, maybe not a revolution but we wanted one in each of our yards before the summer was over.

 

 

I am pretty sure Larry was hoping I'd wake up one morning with it erased from my memory. Don't get me wrong, he loved the idea as well. It was the constructing it that was problematic. But I had faith...that my pestering and his abilities would provide.

 

They did. And let me just tell you how awesome this is. 

 

 

Ella was completely on board with this, which helped my cause.

There are several books that she hasn't read in over a year. Asking her to part with any of those is a brutal process. She covets books (our kid for sure). But we did agree to release a few into the universe. I was super proud of her.

Look at him, all proud and stuff!

As if the finished product wasn't exciting enough, it was the onslaught of traffic and photos being texted to me as friends visited the library.

This hand-written note left on the bookshelf almost made me cry. Who knew this would foster such a sense of community and fun?! I mean, we hoped for that but it has even surprised me. We notice cars driving by slowly trying to figure it all out. We've had tweens/teens stroll by and ask, "So we can just take one?"

Ella and I are super proud of Larry for his masterpiece. We go out and visit the library almost daily to see what awesomeness has been left.

And as for Brooke, she got her wish too. Her awesome library is situated at the other end of our neighborhood. We suspect a few more will be popping up in the next few months. Maybe it will be a revolution after all!

~H