The Little Library

For community & self-advocacy groups

A shelf for the stories your community wants to tell.

✨ Once upon a real library shelf — an 8-year-old snuck his own handwritten book in, just to see if it would be read. It was. Read the true story →

Not a story about someone — a story from them. Members write and illustrate their own stories, in their own words, and they sit on a real shared shelf — read, checked out, and celebrated on their own terms.

Try it right now How this works for a group
The Dog Who Ate the Moon
My Sister Is a Robot
The Longest Recess
A Very Small Dragon
The Backwards Day
Grandma's Rocket

Where this started

A boy, a composition notebook, and a library barcode.

A kid wrote and illustrated his own story — drawings on top, his handwriting underneath, the way you'd fill in one of those school notebooks. He brought it to his local library. The librarian gave it a barcode and shelved it like any other book.

It became locally famous. Other kids kept checking it out, again and again — not because it was polished, but because it was his, and it was real, and it was there, on the shelf, waiting to be picked.

A story doesn't need permission to matter. It just needs a shelf.

How it works

No accounts required, nothing to install, nothing for your organization to maintain.

STEP ONE

Someone writes & creates

A story, in their own words and their own art — however they make it, exactly as they'd want it told.

STEP TWO

A photo shelves it

A photo of each page gets added, and it's on the shared shelf — with their name on it, as the author.

STEP THREE

The community reads it

Checked out, read, and appreciated — not as an example of something, just as a story someone wanted to tell.

Try it right now

This is the real, working shelf — not a mockup. Open a book, flip through it, or check one out.

Open in a new tab →

How this works for a group

The short version: this is about whoever's sharing having real say in it. Here's what usually comes up.

Who decides what gets shared?
The person telling the story — or their family, if that's how your group works best. Nothing goes up without that choice being made on purpose.
Can a story come down later?
Yes, anytime, no explanation needed. Someone changing their mind is always honored.
Does our organization need any technical setup?
No. It's a single link, nothing to install or maintain — I handle the technical side, so you can focus on the people.
What does it cost?
Nothing — free for your group and everyone in it, with no ads.

Want this for your group?

Happy to talk it through, answer questions, or set up your community's own shelf.

[Your name]

[your email]  ·  [phone, optional]