Eileen's primary literary love is comic books, but she’s always on the lookout for her next literary adventure no matter what form it takes. She has a Bachelor's in media studies, a Master's in digital communication, a smattering of published short stories, and a seriously cute dog. Follow her on Bluesky.
Aren’t Little Free Libraries (LFLs) wonderful? They’re such a convenient way to find new books and pass along books that you no longer have room for at home — all for free. I’m lucky enough to have multiple LFLs in my community that I visit regularly.
You know what I don’t often see in my local LFLs? Graphic novels.
This might be a problem specific to me. Obviously, the types of books that flow into and out of a Little Free Library depend on what the people in the community are reading and donating. It seems like I’m maybe the only person donating comic books around here. I have only ever seen one graphic novel that wasn’t put in there by me. Boo!
It’s not like there’s no demand. When the weather is nice, I try to visit my local LFLs once a week. I’ll put in a graphic novel, and it is almost always gone within a week — two at most — which is at least as fast as other kinds of books seem to move in and out. Someone or multiple someones around here really wants those comics. I’m glad I was able to fulfill that need, but I wish I wasn’t the only one doing it.
Why are there so few graphic novels in my Little Free Libraries? Aside from the neighborhood’s lack of good taste (I kid), comics’ larger average size may pose an issue. While some LFLs are big enough to accommodate your average or jumbo-sized trade paperback, smaller models can’t. I imagine that makes it harder for people sitting on unwanted trade paperbacks to want to lug them down to an LFL that might not even be able to fit those books.
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That doesn’t completely explain the dearth of comics, though. Some publishers do print graphic novels in smaller sizes, and manga is typically paperback size. So if you have any of those lying around, I encourage you to share them with your neighbors. You might be surprised by how fast they get snapped up.
Little Free Libraries won’t solve America’s literacy problems or make up for the book bans sweeping the country, to say nothing of last month’s heinous Supreme Court decision allowing parents to stop their children from reading books about queer people at school. But they are still a valuable community resource, and what we put in there matters.
Click here to find the Little Free Library closest to you and start spreading that graphic goodness! Note that not all Little Free Libraries are registered, so you may have some locally that don’t appear on the linked map.
English (US) · 