Our Little Free Library and books!

Hello, everybody! Can we just take a moment...

...to mourn the passing of summer? I don't love the heat but I MISS THE FRESH FOOD! My goodness, I'm in veggie and fruit withdrawal.
                                    
OK, I guess we can move on now. We're supposed to get snow this week and although Fall has been wonderful, I'm ready for winter!
                              
This picture: I thought my boys were just playing in the leaves until I heard a rustle and out popped our little neighbor friend. She's such a good sport. At her age, I NEVER would have trusted two little boys with shovels!
                                   
One project I wanted to get finished before winter set in. This is our Free Little Library. If you're not familiar with that international movement, you can read about it here. We saw one near the Children's Museum in Walla Walla and as neat as it is to think of a neighborhood library where you can swap favorite books with your neighbors, I had an ulterior motive.

When we bought our house, we were hemmed in by orchards and we lived on a dirt road. In the past fifteen years, the orchards have been replaced by lots and lots of apartment buildings. And our corner is the bus stop for the entire neighborhood. Imagine- at least fifty kids (I've counted more but let's say fifty) walking across your lawn everyday on their way home from school. (Ok, don't imagine it if you love your lawn. It will give you an ulcer.)

My friend Nick Bruel writes the Bad Kitty books. I was afraid to tag him in my facebook picture, since I am no Nick Bruel. But he graciously said that Bad Kitty was properly scared by those fish, and didn't mention my awkward rendition of our favorite naughty cat.

But imagine a lot of these kids living too far from the library, or their parents not having the right info to get a card. In our city, you need your last electric bill, last phone bill, driver's license AND a personal reference of another library member.  When I worked at our library in 2010, I saw many (many, many) Hispanic kids come in with their parents, encouraged by their teachers to get a city library card. But undocumented immigrants can't get a driver's license, therefore, their children couldn't have access to the public library. Every single time it hurt my heart to tell a child "No". I understand why it had to be and I never broke the rules, but I started thinking...

What if... I made my own library? No legal documents required. Freely given, freely received. Books in both languages. Books all kids would enjoy, and parents, too. If I already had all these small people crossing my lawn twice a day... what would it hurt to stick a little library in their way?
 We have boxes of spare books. More books than we can sell at yard sales or give away to friends. Also, my library RECYCLES boxes of children's books that are slightly damaged. I got them on board and now I have a fairly unending supply... and I've needed it. From the first day, the box is almost emptied every afternoon.

And you want to know the most common age of the kids I see at the box? 10-12 year old boys. I'm not kidding... That was NOT what I was expecting! So, instead of fighting to keep picture books stocked, we're suddenly searching out middle grade fiction. I've seen the boys arguing over who gets to read Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief first. That was the highlight of my month, right there.

So, random cute picture of my god child holding my latest book release. She got the first copy. I think she's reserving judgement. She demands a happy ending...

The fabulous YA author Lois Duncan knows that I have a background in linguistics and sent me a bunch of her foreign editions. I have a shelf of copies of my favorite books in other languages so, this made me really smile! (I didn't tell her that I only took a year of college German and it was much harder for me than Polish, Russian, Ukrainian, Bulgarian, etc. etc. etc.) I thanked her kindly and then we sent some of them to our pen pals in Germany.

One more little book related pic.  My dad brought me this one day, as writing sustenance. Made me laugh. 

And I did cook some very tasty dishes this week but I think I'll save them for next Friday, But here's a preview. 

Quick and easy pan fried garlic annetto shrimp with yaki soba noodles.

A sauteed shiitaki mushroom and beef with lime and parsley dish that which was way better than I expected.

I know this looks similar to the first dish, but it's really not. I promise. Quick and easy peanut chicken stir fry. (This was over chow mein noodles because my husband needs carbs. He works too hard to survive on veggies and a few ounces of protein. I, on the other hand, survive on Jelly Belly jellybeans.)

So, those dishes are coming in the next few weeks and somewhere in there will be THANKSGIVING! I'm ready!

Until then, I'll be watching the sky for the snow that we're supposed to get soon. Happy winter!