Ellie and I were out for a walk yesterday when we came across the Little Free Library near my home and we saw this:

In case you cannot read it, the note says:

Notice:
I put this Little Free Library here to teach my son about sharing and kindness.
When you take all of the books out of the library at once without even leaving a book, you make it very hard to teach that lesson.
Be neighborly. Take a book, leave a book.
Thank you

What kind of world do we live in where people can’t make sharing books and knowledge a wonderful thing without people ruining it? It’s a simple concept that has the tragedy of the commons lurking all around it.

I’ve come across a few of these wonderful bits of humanity during my travels, and I always browse through to see what’s there but I never take a book because I’m always caught off guard when I come across them. I’m always empty-handed. So, like the sign above points out, I don’t get to take a book.

Things like this worry me because I really want to have one of these once I have a place of my own. I doubt it will bother me as much as it bothered the owner of the one in the picture because a book for someone to read is still better than not offering one at all.

Give me some hope for us all, and promise you’ll try to always leave a book to keep the sharing going.