La Cañada family adds Little Free Library to their front yard

When it comes to her love of reading, La Cañada resident Billie Melillo is an open book.

A Paradise Canyon Elementary reading intervention specialist who also works part-time helping Los Angeles Unified students read at grade level, Melillo is unabashed about her bibliophilia.

“I love books; I have them everywhere,” she said, confessing practically every room in her Gould Avenue home contains a bookcase or shelf.

So last year, when Melillo learned about Little Free Library, a literacy movement that fosters the installation of ad-hoc lending libraries wherever citizens can get permission to put them, it only made sense to put a book repository in her frontyard.

A contractor working on the property built the Melillos a tiny house with a pitched roof and a door that opens to reveal shelves where they could leave titles for others who might be in the vicinity of Gould’s 5200 block.

Playing off the children’s classic “Little Golden Books Library” series and their street name, the family calls their outdoor offering “A Little Goulden Library,” and regularly curates books for children and adults.

“I have four kids, and three of the four kids love books and get excited putting them in there,” Melillo said, adding that visitors not only take books, but leave some of their own from time to time.

Once, Melillo said she came home to find a girl and her nanny sitting on her lawn by the little library, reading a book and enjoying a snack.

Creating opportunities for literacy to bloom is the exact spirit behind Little Free Library, according to Kris Huson, director of marketing and communications for the Wisconsin-based nonprofit.

Huson said the idea began in 2009, when Wisconsinite Tod Bol installed the schoolhouse-shaped original in his yard to honor his mother, a former schoolteacher who loved reading. Since then the group has helped spawn more than 30,000 little free libraries in all 50 U.S. states and more than 70 countries worldwide.

“It’s like sowing seeds, where you plant one flower and it turns into 10,” she said of the organization’s rapid growth. “Our brand champions are people who love to read and see this as an outlet for them to share books with their neighbors.”

That was the case for La Cañada book lover Charles Thuss, who saw the idea online last year and wanted to erect one at his home on the 4700 block of Hayman Avenue. Shortly after his wife, Octavia, gave him one last December, the little free library was open for business.

“We have a lot of people who walk down Hayman going to the farmers market, or in the evening,” said Thuss, whose three sons help keep the library stocked with titles. “Last weekend we had a delivery, and the delivery truck driver had his son with him. He found a bunch he enjoyed and took them with him.”

Although library owners have encountered an occasional dust-up with municipal codes and city laws (the city of Los Angeles, for example, forbids the structures without a permit), La Cañada Community Development Director Robert Stanley said Monday he sees the matter as one of residential use.

That doesn’t mean, however, the city council couldn’t rule against the structures should a group of residents file a complaint, or that city officials cannot enforce a municipal code restricting frontyard structures to 42 inches, Stanley clarified.

“We typically work on a complaint basis. We don’t go out looking for these things,” he added. “If it’s not higher than 42 inches and we don’t receive a complaint, we’re not going to have an issue.”

Complainants notwithstanding, Little Free Library hopes the movement will grow as more people see the lending libraries and be driven by their passion for books to start their own, Huson said.

“It’s on-the-ground curbside literacy,” she said of the cause. “That’s what we really love.”