We’ve talked a few times in passing before about the “Books Aware of Their Own Bookishness” collection here at Butterflies & Aliens North, that includes such classics as The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales and The Monster at the End of This Book. Well Give This Book Away, written by Darren Farrell and illustrated by Maya Tatsukawa, could have been considered the latest addition to this collection, except for that fact that it’s no longer in our collection. Never really even made it in, in fact…

As the title so boldly directs, this is a book that was not meant to be kept. In the spirit of Keri Smith’s Wreck This Journal series, and in a curious way the opposite of her book The Wander Society, Give This Book Away recognizes itself as a book, as an object, as the thing that can do the wandering instead of the reader.

And so it asks us to give it away to someone, as an act of love and connection between people, specifically “someone you’ve NEVER talked to before” — with the important caveat “Unless it came from your local library, in which case, share it with a friend before you check it back in.” Well since the Butterflies & Aliens Library isn’t entirely the most traditional of libraries, we can waive that particular requirement in our case.

We have, however, added a note to the inside front cover of the book, on the end papers specially designed with places to list the names and locations of the people who end up with this particular copy of this book.

First, we made a bit of an edit to where it said “This Book Belongs To” and changed it to “This Book Was Cared For By” — it’s kind of our philosophy of books, and of life, that things don’t ever really belong to us… we just get the privilege of being their stewards for a part of their lives. Also yes, we do steward them with a bit of a book dragon ferocity, but we also know that it’s nonetheless only a temporary book horde.

And so we’ve taken up the challenge put to us by Darren and Maya in giving our copy of this book away. But we’ve also added a note asking its future stewards, if they’d like, to send us a note and maybe a photo that we can use to update this post.

And now we wait and see. Maybe this post never changes… maybe, hopefully, we hear back from a whole host of strangers about the adventures of this book. And maybe, as the book itself suggests: “Maybe one day, someone will give this book… the one you are holding in your hands right now… the one you are about to give away… back to you.” Maybe indeed.

Until that day, happy reading!

— Winston