What I don’t know about the online Book Community could, I suspect, fill a small country, but I’m learning. Slowly but surely, I’m learning. And the thing I have learnt about in the last couple of weeks has made me giddily excited – Book Fairies.
The Book Fairy movement combines two things that I think there should always be more of in the world: books and random acts of kindness and generosity.
The Book Fairy initiative launched in March 2017 and currently boasts nearly 9000 book fairies in over 100 countries. Book Fairies gather up books which they’ve enjoyed and then set about sharing the book love by hiding them in places to be discovered. I learnt about it quite by accident when the Western Isles Book Fairy account (@bookfairies_eileansiar) followed me on Instagram and as I snooped around their page I squealed with delight, free books and a community intent on sharing some happiness around? Sign me up!
So I did. Sign up I mean. And I hid my first book earlier this week (It was very hard not to hide behind a car and wait until someone found it, but I decided that might be a smidge too creepy.)
Anyone can become a book fairy and you don’t need anything special to do it. You can package up a book you think would give someone pleasure and hide it as a surprise for someone to come across, usually with a note to assure whoever finds it that it’s a free book for them to take away and enjoy. But you can also order official stickers, among other things, off the website if you want that little extra glimmer of officialdom to get you started.
I have yet to be lucky enough to find one of the books hidden by the official Book Fairies Eilean Siar account, but I’m going to be keeping my eyes peeled, and now I’ve found an exciting new way to make room on my shelves for more books without feeling like I’m just abandoning books I love – sharing them out to hopefully give someone a little boost on a gloomy winter’s day.
If you want to find out more about Book Fairies go to www.ibelieveinbookfairies.com
hebrideanreader.com 
I have been lucky and amusingly surprised to find a book from a fairy in the bus waiting room in tarbet, isle of Harris. (The casebook of Carnacki. THE GOSHTFINDER by W.H.hodson. It was a welcome find as i was stuck in harris for an extra two days because of the bad weather, hence ferry cancellations over the weekend.. it was wrapped beautiffully with a black ribbon.
Thank you so much book fairy. I shall pass it on when i finish reading it (quite good so far!)
Regards
Carole
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