Ontario 'Book Fairies' Are Hiding Good Reads Across The Province For You To Uncover

Calling all bookworms, we’ve got a real page-turner for you. There’s a group of Toronto-based 'Book Fairies' hiding free books around the city for you to uncover. So if you’re looking for quality reads that won’t cost a dime, as well as a cute example of how wholesome the world can still be, then this one’s for you. 

From university campuses to gorgeous public gardens, you just never know where The Book Fairies will stash their next gift.

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Different Book Fairy groups exist all across the world, but Narcity reached out to the Toronto section to get an idea of how it all works. 

“To put it simply, a Book Fairy is a person who attaches a Book Fairy sticker to a book that they’d like to give away and then they hide it in plain sight for someone to find,” Toronto Fairy Katherine shared with Narcity.

“The sticker on the book encourages people to hide the book again when they’re done reading it so that another person can enjoy the book. We hide books inside public buildings or outside beautiful gardens... anywhere the book can be seen,” she added.

Before a book is released into the wild, the Fairies will post the location on Instagram so you know exactly where to start looking.

The books are usually found quite quickly, and although the pandemic made hiding books a bit tricky, the Fairies are back at it again now that conditions have improved, Katherine explains. 

“We recently did a bunch of book drops in Alexander Muir Memorial Gardens. It was a beautiful day and a lot of fun.

“We got lots of thank yous from the people who found the books. Some people get very emotional over finding one of our books which of course, makes us equally emotional.”

You can expect to find all kinds of books in different genres from both famous and indie authors hidden around the 6ix.

Sometimes the Fairies even co-ordinate their book hidings with movie releases.

“Book Fairies worldwide (not just Toronto) recently had an event with the film Little Women where we hid over 1000 Little Women books that had been autographed by Emma Watson, who was a character in the film,” Katherine explains.

“In short, the Toronto Book Fairies (all Book Fairies) simply love books and we love to give books away. That is the glue that binds all the book fairies together,” Katherine says.

So if you live for that new book smell and can’t wait to dive into a new fantasy world, then be sure to keep your eyes peeled to the Toronto Book Fairies Instagram account. 

And if you want to spread your own literary joy, you can head over to the website to see how you can become a Book Fairy yourself.