by Leanne Ogasawara

1.

An avid walker, I like making great rambling loops around my neighborhood. Along the way, I’ve noticed four Little Free Libraries that I must have probably strolled past, oblivious, a thousand times… each is cute in its own way; one built surrounded by bird feeders, another positioned at the perfect height for a small child to reach inside. My favorite is in a neighborhood where the houses are a million dollars more expensive than the one’s on my side of the street—in California, it’s all about the zip code.

Having spent the past ten years building a massive multi-room library of my own, I felt I should leave these little libraries to others—But then I thought, why not just have a quick peak inside? And maybe even distribute a few books of my own…. And so, I trotted over to the one closest to my house.

Being one of those kinds of people who cares about what book sits next to another on the shelf, I spend a lot of time arranging my library. I like it when books of a kind sit side-by-side with others of a like mind. I think of them in conversation with each other: there are stacks of fiction and nonfiction related to Japan across the room from rows of essays and stories roughly revolving around the art of translation. In pride of place is my shelf of “top ten novels” and shelves devoted to the work of mentors and teachers. And, I have multiple shelves of books with ghosts. These are not ghost stories per se, but are works of speculative fiction that embrace the magical real in the world. Read more »