Confession: My name may not be Liesel Meminger, but I am in fact a book thief.
Scattered around my neighborhood are tiny little mailbox-looking bookshelves, appropriately named Little Free Libraries. Whenever Iām going for a run (or even for a drive), I make it a point to stop and see what exciting books I can find if I happen to pass one by. Much like with thrifting and relationships, the key to finding a good one is to go in with no expectations; if you have a specific book title in mind, youāll only end up being disappointed at the end.Ā
Though the premise of these libraries is to leave a book in order to take a book, Iāve made the educated guess that the people who frequent these libraries aren’t absolutely dying to read my battered copy of The Things They Carried. So, in most cases, Iāll just partake in the take-a-book part. Sue me.Ā
With that being said, hereās a (growing!) list of books that Iāve stolen – sorry, I meant to say borrowed – from Little Free Libraries:
Paper Towns by John Green: I was absolutely obsessed with this book when I was in middle school, and I mean obsessed – I even kept a journal with cross-hatched writing just because Margo Roth Spiegelman did, even though my handwriting was already atrociously illegible even before the crossing over part. Whether it’s for better or for worse, I canāt wait to reread the book and be whisked back into the brain of my seventh-grade self.Ā
The Boxcar Children by Gertrude Chandler Warner: Okay, I didnāt actually take this book because I knew that there would be little kids in my neighborhood who would genuinely enjoy it, but I did heavily consider it. This series had a firm grip on me as a child, and I – very insensitively – was immensely envious of these 4 orphaned children who lived in a raggedly little boxcar together.
Girl Talk by Jen Hatmaker: I picked this book up because I thought itād be ironically funny, but I read the summary on the back and I- yeah okay, I donāt plan on reading it anytime soon. This one is going back into a local Library, so if youāre ever in my neighborhood, feel free to go on a witchhunt to find it.Ā
Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney: To date, this is my biggest steal in Little-Free-Library-book-hunting history. Itās one of the few 5-star books in my Goodreads ratings, which says a lot because Iām a critical hag. However, since I had already read the book just a few weeks before I found it in the Library, I ended up giving it to a friend, who also said they really enjoyed it.
These Happy Golden Years by Laura Ingalls Wilder: In elementary school, I owned the complete set of the Little House on the Prairie books, the ones with the pastel-colored gingham spines. Though I probably wonāt ever reread the entire 9-part series in full, Iām excited to read this book to live vicariously through Lauraās life for one last sense of closure.
Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond: Even though this book had been on my TBR for at least a couple of months before I coincidentally stumbled across it during one of my many Little Free Library visits, itās still sitting untouched on my nightstand to this day. Oops.Ā
The Very Quiet Cricket by Eric Carle: I snagged this book as part of a scavenger hunt for badminton, and of the 17 things my group and I stole from the surrounding Naperville Downtown area (traffic cones, marking flags, you get the gist), this one was the least felon-like. Though this was a childrenās book, I did in fact end up skimming it and even returned it back to its rightful home after the scavenger hunt was over. (Yes, my group and I did end up winning š¤)
I hope you enjoyed this thieving recap of mine – this blog better not be used against me in court.
2 thoughts on “the real life book thiefš„·”
Frances and Nick endgame? or will they be off again
Bibiane, I absolutely love this blog. It’s so cool that your neighborhood has Little Free Libraries everywhere, I wish that my neighborhood had something like that! š It’s such a cool way of connecting everyone in the neighborhood and, like you said, you can never know which book you might end up finding which is so unique. When I saw that you mentioned Paper Towns, I immediately got so excited. It was one of my FAVORITE books when I was in middle school, and I have not found many people that enjoyed the novel as well (no clue why!). With all of these books like Paper Towns, Little House on the Prairie, Pride and Prejudice, Divergent, and more, I loved immersing myself in the main character’s shoes and imagining what my life would be like in their worlds. Looking back, some of the scenarios that I would have been in if I was a character in the book may not have been truly optimal, but it was also so fun as a child to adopt the character’s practices and fully adopt the role. Similarly to how you began to engage in cross-hatched writing, I started doing parkour everywhere to mimic Tris from Divergent (very embarrassing). Thanks for sharing, and I hope to come across some Little Free Libraries some day!
Frances and Nick endgame? or will they be off again
Bibiane, I absolutely love this blog. It’s so cool that your neighborhood has Little Free Libraries everywhere, I wish that my neighborhood had something like that! š It’s such a cool way of connecting everyone in the neighborhood and, like you said, you can never know which book you might end up finding which is so unique. When I saw that you mentioned Paper Towns, I immediately got so excited. It was one of my FAVORITE books when I was in middle school, and I have not found many people that enjoyed the novel as well (no clue why!). With all of these books like Paper Towns, Little House on the Prairie, Pride and Prejudice, Divergent, and more, I loved immersing myself in the main character’s shoes and imagining what my life would be like in their worlds. Looking back, some of the scenarios that I would have been in if I was a character in the book may not have been truly optimal, but it was also so fun as a child to adopt the character’s practices and fully adopt the role. Similarly to how you began to engage in cross-hatched writing, I started doing parkour everywhere to mimic Tris from Divergent (very embarrassing). Thanks for sharing, and I hope to come across some Little Free Libraries some day!