You may have passed a little free library in your neighborhood on your way to the bus stop: a small house-shaped box atop a post in someone’s front yard. A sign, “Take a Book; Leave a Book,” invites passers-by to pause and unlatch the clear front door to more closely inspect the books inside.

Little Free Libraries is a nonprofit organization that inspires a love of reading, builds community, and sparks creativity by fostering neighborhood book exchanges around the world. It also has a number of other reading programs, such as the Action Book Club. And they sell little libraries boxes and posts.

This spring, Cayuga Community Connectors unveiled four new little libraries, bringing the number of free libraries in the area to more than 10. I’m uncertain about the exact number, since not all “stewards” as the people who own and maintain the libraries are called, choose to register on the website, www.littlefreelibrary.org, and thus become part of the official count.

One library owner said that everyone who walks by smiles when they see the sign. Some take a book; one asked if she could leave a book. The Rev. Glenda Hope talked about the little boy next door who always checks her free library for new children’s books and has taken to replacing the books he takes with one of his own.

A good-sized crowd joined a ribbon-cutting walk for the new little libraries. Each stop occasioned readings – favorite poems, selections from a larger work, an original poem by Dolores Fierro. Four of the Eng children shared pages from their favorite books, with GG, one of 10 siblings, and Mel Noguera reading a section from one of their favorite books.

By the time we reached the fourth house, two more Cayuga Connectors volunteered to install little libraries in their front yards. After the last red ribbon had been cut, selections read, photos taken, and books exchanged, the crowd gathered in Hope’s house for pizza and laughter.