FARGO — Throughout the Fargo-Moorhead area, little hutches are filled to the brim with books of every genre . Children's books, romance novels and suspenseful page-turners line the shelves of miniature freestanding schoolhouses, robots and telephone booths — and now, a tree.
"It's been there about a month," said Melanie Milam. She tends to her own library on the corner of 14th Avenue and Third Street North in north Fargo.
Milam said she got the idea for her library after seeing one in Idaho. When her neighbor's 60-foot-tall tree was threatening to topple onto her house, the top of the tree was cut, and the library was put into what remained of the trunk.
And what kind of treasures will you find if you happen to stumble upon Milam's library?
"It's mostly filled with mysteries," she said. "You read them once and you know how it's going to end by the fourth page, so you can't read them again. I have hundreds of them, too. I belonged to a mystery (book) club for 30 years, and you buy (the books), you know."
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But perhaps the most unique feature of the library isn't the trunk that it calls home — in fact, the best part about this library isn't even the books.
It's the librarian figure who lives at the base of the trunk.
"I decided the librarian should go down here," Milam said, as she opens the little door to reveal the keeper of the books. "He's got a bookcase behind him. I've got a little cat I am going to glue in with him, because every library should have a cat."
While the shelves of the library have only been filled for a few days, Milam said people have enjoyed checking out what she has in her tree — especially at the bottom.
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She just has one rule for readers coming to take her books.
"I don't want them back," she said.
