Nolagirl and I were at the Grand Avenue Festival in November of 2017. As we walked down the avenue looking at public art and popping into galleries to see the cool pieces on display, we came across a Little Free Library (LFL).

If you don’t already know from reading my blog or from your own experience, Wikipedia says,

Like other public book exchanges, a passerby can take a book to read or leave one for someone else to find. The [Little Free Library] organization relies on volunteer “stewards” to construct, install, and maintain book exchange boxes. For a book exchange box to be registered, and legally use the Little Free Library brand name, stewards must purchase a finished book exchange, a kit or, for a DIY project, a charter sign,^[23] which contains the “Little Free Library” text and official charter number.^[24][25]

The LFL we encountered on Grand Avenue was not your everyday Little Free Library, not at all! It was a Little FREEK [sic] Library. Someone came along and with one letter changed this registered Little Free Library (charter #5315) into a Little Freek Library.

I know I’ve said in the past that anyone who would steal or vandalize a Little Free Library has problems and needs prayers, but I’m not upset that someone with a Sharpie turned a Little Free Library into a Little Freek Library. In fact, I think it’s hilarious. I guess I’m a hypocrite. Oh well.

This “vandalizing” doesn’t upset me because I don’t think this “vandalizing” hurts anyone. It’s not like the “vandal” wrote anything vulgar or offensive on the LFL. There’s no hate speech here, no drawings of Nazi swastikas, no racism or misogyny,  just the request to “celebrate freakier neighborhoods.” I just can’t argue with that. I think freakier neighborhoods (and freakier neighbors, for that matter) do need to be celebrated, especially in places like Phoenix that can seem very mainstream and somewhat boring (at least to me).

There were only a couple of books in the Little Freek Library, and they seemed old and in poor condition. I wished I had a few books with me to contribute to this LFL. It really needed some book love. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to revisit this LFL before I left town.

I’ve visited Little Free Libraries in Los Gatos, CA; Santa Fe and Taos, NM; Flagstaff and Mesa, AZ; and others in Phoenix too, but this was my first Little Freek Library. I was pretty excited to have stumbled across. Let your freek flag fly, Little Free Library on Grand Avenue. Let your freek flag fly.

I took the photos in this post.