On August 6, 2013, I wrote about our family’s newly built Little Free Library for my very first post at GeekMom.
That was nearly 11 years ago, and so much has changed in the world. Well, at least in our little corner of it. My “little book lovers” are now (almost) 15 and 22. Trees and bushes have grown and fallen in our yard, loved ones have passed on, and other new extended family members have joined us.
Our Little Free Library, as creaky as it was built, was there for all of it. When a drunk driver flew through our neighborhood and took out our rock wall and a tree, the car managed to just miss the library. This was the first thing our neighbors checked on when it happened, too. That library had to stand.
When the isolated depression of 2020 hit, everyone still visited the library. It was always open for business. It made it through local, state, and national elections never allowing ANY political pamphlets for any party or politician to use it as a campaign box.
Although we heard nightmares about people vandalizing libraries, and sneaking in pornographic materials, we checked our little books all the time. No one ever thought to deface it or abuse having this little pocket of reading adventure in the neighborhood in any way.
Over the years, our content has expanded into both English and Spanish, thanks to the give and take of our readers. We had some magazines, comic books, baby books, and paperbacks of all genres for all ages. There were textbooks and how-tos.
Every Halloween we filled it with spooky books for different ages to celebrate “All Hallows Read.”
Every now and then, around “school fundraiser” time, we would find a good portion of it cleaned out by local high school students grabbing books to bring to yard sale donations. That was okay because it would soon fill back up with content from people moving or cleaning out their own garages.
One summer, a regular visitor loaded us up with those “Barnes and Noble classic books” with the fancy gold trim. We would receive thank you notes and Christmas cards. Even people who didn’t know us knew the library.
We were happy to be making a small difference in our community with this little wooden house filled with books.
About a year-and-a-half ago we noticed the flow of books was getting a little bit, well, stagnant. Books were not coming or going. The visits didn’t seem to come. It felt like people just stopped using the library. We continued to check it regularly and even moved and changed books around ourselves for visitors, but still, we were not getting many hits.
Did people stop caring?
Then, a few months ago, a fall windstorm burst through, and our library, which endured for a decade, came smashing to the ground. Had this been a sign from the library gods that no one needs it anymore?
We placed the smashed pieces in our backyard and took the books to our used bookstore. We might rebuild it soon, but for whom? No one came in so long.
After a couple of weeks had passed, we got a message from the official Little Free Library site our library site someone had reported our library missing or damaged.
I sent them a note to please list us as “temporarily down” until we were able to rebuild.
School supplies, car repairs, and health-related issues required our money and time, so we didn’t get around to rebuilding. The little official Little Free Library nameplate was on our garage shelf next to the kitchen door reminding me every day that we needed to get the library back up… eventually.
Yet, why? Did anyone care?
Then last week, the Library Gods spoke to us again. This time they came in the form of a visitor from a neighboring town. They heard we had a library and wanted to donate some children’s books. We told them we did have a library, but it was temporarily down. Still, we took the books.
Perhaps next time we go to our bookstore, we will donate them. Then another visitor, completely unrelated to the first one, came with even more books. And another. In the course of one week, we had received multiple reminders the readers were still there, and they wanted our library back.
So, in the midst of a hot summer, we are rebuilding. Wood prices are a lot higher than they were, but we acquired better wood. Our yard trees are bigger, but now there is a better shadier spot to dig out the hole. We learned how to better keep the pole stable and weatherproof.
We don’t have a cool look for it yet, but we got the house and door built. Finally, we could add our little Little Free Library sign to the front so people will know we are up and running.
Will more people come? Will the library get rediscovered? It looks like people are already waiting for it, so it is being rebuilt!
Even if we think people have forgotten us, the Library Gods have spoken. And they told us it is better to have books waiting on people to read them than to have an anxious reader—of any age—without something to read.
