Little Diverse Lending Libraries

Dinah Murdoch Local Teacher & Diversity Advocate

Social media is better known for breeding inertia than inspiration, but it was while scrolling lazily through my Instagram feed that I first heard of Sarah Kamya.

Kamya, a New York City school counsellor, was back home at her parents’ house in Arlington, Massachusetts when the world shut down last spring. Like many of us, she walked a lot on those quiet days. Passing her neighborhood Little Free Library often, she noticed that the titles in it were lacking in diversity. Same white authors, same old titles.

Kamya had a classic lightbulb moment -- what if we could fill Little Free Libraries with books by Black authors? To share Black stories, inspire Black children and give voice to Black experiences? She wasted no time getting organized. Within a few months, she’d raised thousands of dollars, collected hundreds of new books, and filled not only the Little Free Libraries in her neighbourhood, but in all 50 states.

Watching Sarah’s Little Free Diverse Libraries project unfold, I thought: Well, we could do that here! In my Midtown neighborhood, there are close to a dozen Little Free Libraries within a few blocks of my house, and many more in Kitchener-Waterloo beyond. It felt like an actionable project I could sink my teeth into -- raising some money, buying some books, and just getting to work.

It also felt right. My family and I marched in Downtown Kitchener’s Black Lives Matter protest in the wake of George Floyd’s death last June, and I had been reading and listening to educate myself to know more and do better. But bringing Little Free Diverse Libraries to KW felt like a way to take action, to use my privilege to amplify the voices and centre the experiences of Black, Indigenous and People of Colour who are frequently not heard or appreciated. As an early literacy teacher at a beautifully diverse local elementary school, my heart also leapt at the idea that my students might find a book in a Little Free Library and think, “Hey, that kid looks like me!”

I knew the members of this wonderful community would step up, and they have. Some folks have donated money -- about $2,700 to date, just from individuals. Cash has been spent at independent bookstores -- half in local shops like Wordsworth Books, and half in Black and Indigenous-owned bookstores in Southern Ontario.

Other supporters have purchased books through a registry of over 300 titles I set up at Indigo.ca. Around 150 new books have been donated that way. Publishing companies have pitched in to the tune of over 200 brand new books. Indigo’s Kitchener and Waterloo stores each donated a stack of antiracist titles. Friends, neighbours and strangers have mined their own bookshelves, plucking titles by BIPOC authors and dropping them on my front porch. As a result, I’ve been able to get around 600 books into over 150 Little Free Libraries in Kitchener and Waterloo -- fiction and non, books for babies, children, young adults and grown-ups. And I’m not done yet.

All books in the KW Little Free Diverse Libraries project are labelled before they’re distributed with a message that encourages readers to enjoy them but also to return them to a Little Free Library when finished. Also included in the label is a message about every reader’s need for mirror books and window books.

Mirror books are those in which we see ourselves, where our lives and experiences feel validated. Window books give us a glimpse into someone else’s world. They deepen empathy and allow us to reflect on what we didn’t previously know.

Dinah Murdoch

My hope is that readers all over Kitchener and Waterloo are finding mirror and window book joy in Little Free Diverse Libraries. In the words of the ever-inspiring Sarah Kamya, it all happens one book at a time.

For more information or to donate to this project, visit www.kwlittlefreediverselibraries.com