Houston’s first Little Free Library, via SwampLot.com

How cute is this?

It’s little. It’s a library. It’s on the honor system. You bring a book, you take a book. You keep words circulating out in the world, instead of gathering dust on your bookself.

It’s stealth. No library cards or tax dollars at work here. It’s just a cool thing to do. And it’s a movement.

Someone in Houston’s Heights neighborhood read a Kyrie O’Connor column in the Houston Chronicle about the lack of Little Free Libraries in Houston. So they built one, and it’s adorable. SwampLot, one of my favorite real estate blogs, wrote about it here.

I want one.

And there are none, zippo, zilch in San Antonio. Can we fix this?

I also live in a historic district. Is is bad that I read about something like the Little Free Library, and as soon as I think, “awesome,” my next thoughts jump to city codes and in how many various ways this could violate the approvals I’m supposed to get before “altering” the exterior of my home? In San Antonio there’s an actual commission for this sort of thing, and because of it I fear the day I want to change my house color.

And then I wonder if every book and the library itself would disappear in my neighborhood, where putting old stuff out the curb and counting the mere minutes it takes to disappear is high entertainment.

Uh-oh. Have I become jaded?

And yet the Little Free Library melts my stony, reporter’s heart. I’m mentally stocking my mini-brary now. What would you put in a Little Free Library?

– Jen