“I discovered me in the library. I went to find me in the library.”
-Ray Bradbury
I discovered this crafty, colorful mini-library (pictured) during a recent playground visit with the kiddos. (Not pictured: books behind a glass door on the opposite side.)
After seeing this little free library, it occurred to me that reading materials like books, magazines, etc. are perhaps one of the few categories of tangible items that you can freely give away… and expect to have returned in full, and in good condition.
My hunch is that if you had, say, a little free cash register posted at a park, you couldn’t put a pile of cash in there and expect it to be borrowed and returned any time soon, if at all.
Or jewelry, or food, or sunscreen, or… the list could drag along for days.
Books and other publications, however, are one of the few items that can be completely consumed by one person, in a finite sum of time, and still retain its value to another consumer. Once you read a book, chances are you won’t read that book again for a long time, if ever, so it’s easy to pass along to another deserving reader.
Cookies can be consumed, but then the cookie consumer would have to physically go out and make or buy new cookies to place back into the little free cupboard. Good luck with that.
A watch can be consumed, but its value for the consumer lasts for months or years on end, making it unlikely to be returned to the little free jewelry box for somebody else to use, at least not in any kind of reasonable amount of *ahem* time.
Sure, people keep books in their home libraries, but discovering a book at a library (big or little) can be just as rewarding.
Everybody likes a good discovery.
Go find you.
Dangling Twine 