On National Read a Book Day – Sept. 6, 2016 – we are reminded that reading is good for you. You can learn about other people, places and times. Reading can educate the young and slow cognitive decline in old age.
Advances in printing means that using toner instead of ink yields books-on-demand and eliminates the waste of storage space and paper. E-books are books, which means folks have choices if they don’t want the kinesthetic touch of a hard copy.
1st Little Free Library in honour of founder Todd Bol’s mother.
The love of books is poignantly summarized in By Its Cover by Donna Leon: “Old books … were printed on paper made from old cloth, shredded, pounded, watered down and pounded again and hand-made into large sheets to be printed, then folded then folded again and bound and stitched by hand. All that effort to record and remember who we are and what we thought.”
And what better way to celebrate the day than by visiting one of the 100 Little Free Libraries in Winnipeg. Or the more than 44,000 and counting Little Free Libraries in the world. You can see some ingenious libraries on the international site: www.littlefreelibrary.org While public libraries first appeared in the Middle Ages, Little Free Libraries debuted in 2009 in Hudson, Wisconsin.
Little Free Library 5611 in Winnipeg has special return visitors every year since its inception. Kai was one week old when he came by with his big brother Rowan and his dad, Richard.
1st visitors to Little Free Library 5611 – Rowan, Kai, Richard.
At the ripe old age of six, Rowan was reading his favourite author – Stuart McLean! Since the main character is named Dave and I’m married to a Dave, Rowan nicknamed me Morley after the Vinyl Café’s long suffering wife.
(LtoR) Rowan, Kai and Richard … year 2.
Year 3 … this time with mom, Diana.
Richard, Kai and Rowan, Year 4 (2016)
A must read is The Little Free Library Book by Margaret Aldrich which chronicles the story of how the free book exchange all began.
One way to stock up for your winter reading and help sick kids at the same time is to attend the 30th anniversary of the St. Vital Centre hosting the Children’s Hospital Book Market, Sept. 22-24.
Happy reading on National Read a Book Day and every day!
Love, Gracie Sweetstory
Gracie Sweetstory in front of a Little Free Library.
Great story Heather. Hope it encourages more people to read books more often. Didn’t realize there are 100 Little Free Libraries in Winnipeg. Happy National Read a Book Day.
Cheers,
Doug Kretchmer