Bedtime Stories

Posted by Tengrain | June 26, 2014 13:22 | Filed under: Contributors Opinion Politics Tengrain Top Stories

What are these “books”of which you speak?

The idea of sharing his love of books with his neighbors was thrilling to 9-year-old Spencer Collins. So, with the help of his parents, he set up a Little Free Library in their yard in Leawood, Kansas.

City authorities told the family to take it down.

In case you have not heard of Little Free Libraries, they are essentially small structures—not unlike free-standing mailboxes—in which you put books with the intention of sharing them with the public. They can be plain or fancy, but the important point is that you share your love of reading with your neighbors.

In Kansas, it seems that love of reading and zoning laws went head-to-head, and zoning laws won, and the Collins family took down their Little Free Library.

The Leawood City Council said it had received a couple of complaints about Spencer Collins’ Little Free Library. They dubbed it an “illegal detached structure” and told the Collins’ they would face a fine if they did not remove the Little Free Library from their yard by June 19.

So maybe more accurately, the neighborhood scolds ratted out a nine-year old reader who put the Newberry Award winning A Wrinkle in Time and some other kids books into his Little Free Library. You can almost see the grim satisfaction on their tight-pinched faces as the library was taken down.

In my part of Seattle, Capitol Hill, we have these charming detached structures scattered throughout the neighborhood. They sometime are a Mini-Me of the house, and they always have a little sign that says to Take a book and Return a book.

You can tell a lot about your neighbors by the books that they have fed into the Little Free Libraries. I know of one neighborhood house’s Little Free Library that suddenly had a lot of Harry Potter books and I suspect a kid will be going off the college soon; another house with a lush cottage garden has nothing but poetry; the very modern house has physics books (of course); there is one grand mansion with mostly romance novels. Most Little Free Libraries are somewhat eclectic and not genre-based.

Back to Kansas:

In an interview with local television station KMBC, Collins ruminated on creating a pulley system to raise and lower the Little Free Library to provide access. While that probably won’t happen, he is likely to follow through on his plans to appear at the Leawood City Council to suggest Little Free Libraries be allowed.

He will have some supporters. “Leawood should drop rules that prohibit lending libraries in front yards,” proclaims an editorial in the Kansas City Star. “While obviously the ambiance of Leawood would take a hit if people started constructing carports or dog houses in their front yards, lending libraries are an asset. Neighbors who might be worried about them should wander over and borrow a book.”

This is a small story without guns or great protests, and Spencer and his family are showing the rest of Kansas how government works: unlike the Bundy bunch, he is complying with the law and then petitioning to change it. Johannes Gutenberg changed the world with the printing press, and maybe Spencer Collins will change Leawood with his Little Free Library.

And he lived happily ever after.

The Leawood City Council is expected to discuss the Little Free Library issue at its meeting on July 7.

By: Tengrain

Fully caffeinated with twice the sugar, unabashedly liberal. Award-winning Americans United blogger, blogs at Mock Paper Scissors, and sometimes at Crooks and Liars.

You can follow @Tengrain on Twitter, or you might see him enjoying coffee somewhere in Seattle at any given moment of the day.

Bedtime Stories

By: Tengrain

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