Free Books | Bookstr

We all love libraries, but if you’ve ever had to wade twenty minutes through the snow just to get your reserves, you might wish to have one closer to home. And it’s possible! With Little Free Libraries. And fear not! Whether you live in the forest or in Brooklyn, you can make little free libraries part of your life, and you should. What’s better than adding community libraries to the public ones?

Image via Snoop Charlotte

If you’ve got the resources and the space, you can start a library of your own whenever you want to. There are tons of designs and colors on their website, and you can put one anywhere you have two square feet of land and about four vertical. I’ve seen them tucked into gardens, hanging over wrought iron fences, and on the side of the road. Just donate a few books (or thrift them up) and you’re running a library. But if you’re renting, or restless, don’t despair. There are little libraries near you.

Image via Book Riot

Okay, so your library probably won’t be in a defunct phone booth, but the little hutches on the website are cute as it gets, and there’s nothing like getting lost on a cold night and stumbling across a tiny library draped in ivy. But you don’t have to just wander Brooklyn hoping to stumble across something magical (though I do recommend it if you have the time)—because they have a map of all their locations.

Image via Pinterest

There are over 90,000 locations in 90 countries, according to their website, but they can be few and far between in some areas. That’s why it’s so important to start new ones anywhere and everywhere possible! But don’t lose hope. There are two in my neighborhood, so if you’re in any kind of city, you’ll probably have decent luck, and it’s always worth a check either way. There are also sometimes free libraries in parks, so you might be able to find or start one that way. Wherever you live and whatever you read, the Little Free Library is a wonderful resource for book sharing.

Featured image via City of Princeton

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Children’s Book Week might have ended, but on May 5th, to mark of the end of its 100th anniversary, the Library of Congress released 100 British and American titles.

Thankfully, all of these books are still available for free.

Image Via Good News Network

The history of Children’s Book Week starts back in 1919, now a hundred years ago, as a means of celebrating childhood literacy. However, Good New Network makes note of how difficult this was.

Simply put, why print colored illustrations when printing in black and white is far cheaper?

Image Via Library of Congress

However several literary advocates stepped forth, allowing for the last hundred years of Children’s Book Week to be a landmark in literary history. With these books, we can not only how society has evolved over the years, but also look back at the branches of our literary evolution and see just where we came from.

Now all these books, and many more, are available on digital, bridging the gap between old and new.

Fair warning, some of these books may be considered offensive. Lee Ann Potter, the director of the learning and innovation office at the Library of Congress, made note to The New York Times that the library is “celebrating the fact that these books provide us with the opportunity to have conversations about what is appropriate or inappropriate, that they help us understand a different time.”

These education books, from very old to brand new, are a part of our history. They include the work of American illustrators such as W.W. Denslow, Peter Newell, and Howard Pyle, as well as works by renowned English illustrators Randolph Caldecott, Walter Crane, and Kate Greenaway.Image Via Library of Congress

As the Library of Congress states on their website, “The books in this collection were published in the United States and England before 1924, are no longer under copyright, and free to read, share, and reuse however you’d like”.

Are you going to check them out?

Featured Image Via Offspring Lifehacker