We were driving on a road in nearby Vermont and I stopped to take a photo of an old farmhouse, and I was startled to see this beautiful wooden box standing near the road. It said LittleFreeLibrary.org, and I immediately sensed what it was. I looked it up online from my Iphone I was so curious and I saw that it was a new kind of non-profit free library, there are now 50,000 little free libraries scattered all over the U.S. and Canada.

People buy or build these small libraries (they sell them on the site,  and set them outside. Some people find old cabinets in barns, or look for library cabinets in flea markets.

The idea is simple. You take a book and return another book.

People can take a book and return it or leave another one in its place. (This is not a book depository for unwanted books, it is a library, one book at a time, taken and replaced). Maria spotted a book by  Dr. Jean Shinoda Bollen, titled “Goddesses In Older Women, Becoming a Juicy Crone.”

I imagine the juicy crone will find her way into one of Maria’s works soon enough.

She plans to keep the book but replace it. I might come back for the book on plants. We love this idea and will start looking for our own library cabinet. I plan to join the freelibrary. org and register and put one up on the lawn. This is a movement I want to join and Maria feels the same way.

The only downside I can see is that people may inevitably dump their old and used books on the lawn, but I gather that rarely happens. People get the idea quickly. Most of the little free libraries leave notebooks so people can write what they thought of the book they read. And anyone can start one. I think we will be the first in our town, and that is pretty cool.

There is a profoundly democratic and liberating quality to the Internet, and this is an example of how this new technology can be used for good, not just for intruding on other people, telling them what to do, and arguing. Book reading is exploding all across America, and this is a brilliant grass-roots idea to support books and reading.

We hope to find the right cabinet soon and put it up in front of the farm, if not I’ll think about ordering one on the free library site.

This is a great idea I was eager to share.