Words Can Warm the World
by Ashlee Gadd | July 2022
Four years ago, our family bought a fixer upper in a sweet pocket of Sacramento made up of homes built in 1950. The houses around here are what real estate agents call “charming”—which is code word for both small and quirky (see: zero storage, wall paneling, and who can forget the toaster in the wall?).
While I occasionally lament our lack of a kitchen pantry and the size of our master bathroom (see: slightly smaller than Harry Potter’s closet), our home redeems itself with two things: 1) the spacious backyard, and 2) the neighborhood. No two homes on our street look the same, which is my favorite part about living here. We’ve got everything from mid-century modern to farmhouse to cottage to craftsman. There seems to be something for everyone.
I don’t remember the first time I stumbled across a little free library in our quaint neighborhood, but I remember gasping in delight, as if I had just encountered something very special. I had the same reaction when I spotted a bright green iguana on our honeymoon. LOOK AT THAT! I shrieked at my husband, whipping out my camera to take something like 37 pictures. My face burned with embarrassment twenty minutes later, when I realized in St. John, iguanas are basically as common as flies.
I won’t say there are little free libraries everywhere, but we have about a dozen scattered around our neighborhood. The latest one to go up on our street even offers tiny plastic bags with an invitation to take fruit and herbs from the yard.
“Take a book, share a book” is the official mantra of the little free library movement, which embodies two of my favorite things: reading and generosity. Little free libraries operate on the honor code, the gift of charitable assumption, and I love that, too—especially these days when it seems like so many people assume the worst in one another. I cannot help myself from being enchanted by it all, the possibility that one day someone could stumble upon the perfect book, serendipitously left there by a total stranger. Is this not the stuff of Hallmark movies? (Mark my words: if I ever write a novel, it will be about two people who fall in love via a little free library.)
For three whole years, I’ve been talking about getting one. So you can imagine my delight a few weeks ago, when I just so happened to open up Facebook thirty seconds after my friend Libby posted about a little free library in need of a new home.
Libby!!! I’ll take it!!! I typed out frantically, hoping to be the first comment.
She warned me, “It’s dirty. Needs some sprucing.” Ironically, Libby is also our realtor, the same person who found us the house with the toaster in the wall. I laughed at her warning, remembering the state of this house when we first moved in. Mold. Popcorn ceilings. Linoleum peeling up off the floor. “I think I can handle it,” I told her.
One trip across town and a few coats of paint later, our library was still empty and missing the door when a man in a truck pulled up. I saw him through the kitchen window one morning while I was washing dishes, but couldn’t figure out what he was doing. After he drove away, I went outside to find exactly two books in the library: a well-loved copy of The Hobbit and a pristine copy of The Underground Railroad. I could not believe our luck. We had a visitor before we even opened our library, and, even better, a visitor with excellent reading taste.
Over the past week, as I’ve caught glimpses of people stopping at the library, I cannot even begin to articulate the sheer joy and delight of this ordinary ministry. After the heartache and exhaustion of the last two and a half years, this is what is saving me right now: keeping a wooden box of free books in my front yard. Believing in the honor code. Extending the gift of charitable assumption. Promoting the act of reading, of critical thinking, of getting lost in a good story. Giving my neighbors a reason to stop by. Giving my children something to do, something to offer the neighborhood, something to steward well.
There’s a little postcard pinned above my desk that reads, “words can warm the world.” That mantra reminds me why I write, and also, now, why I keep a library on my lawn.
To a summer filled with delight and good books,
Wow, I really resonated with so much of this, esp the old house and lack of closets/storage and appreciating so many other things about my neighborhood. I also keep dreaming about doing a little free library- they bring me such joy just thinking of them and how my children LOVE begging to take things home from them.
We had to have a gorgeous big old tree taken out of our front yard last year…. And now I’m thinking this is what we should do with that space. Thanks for the inspiration!
"Words can warm the world" I Love this so much Ashlee!! I've always dreamed of having a little free library but we live in a rural area, one day if we ever live in a neighborhood it's on my wishlist! But that spirit of genourosity is something I try to cultivate now. Some of our coffeeshops have a little free library and I have a stack of books at home I've been meaning to drop off, I'd love to write some little letters or notes of encouragement in them when i drop them off. Thank you for this beautiful reminder! i've often told my husband the local library is one of the few places where i can go and feel like there is still good in this world for the very same reasons you listed in your story.