Last fall, the Shaker Heights Public Art Department sat down with LAND studio and New Jersey-based landscape architect Haemee Han of Jaemee Studio to celebrate the city’s diversity and rich culture of reading and writing through a public art project on the ground of the Shaker Heights Public Library.

Haemee Han of Jaemee StudioFormer Shaker Heights Mayor and Shaker Heights City Council member Judy Rawson and her husband Bob Rawson also saw the benefit of this project. So they decided to fund the Reader’s Garden public art project.

“It’s impressive to me how the community comes together across differences because we share foundational values,” says Rawson of her support. “I want to celebrate the beginning of conversations.”

The Readers Garden, in the library’s greenspace along the southwest corner of Lee Road and Van Aken Boulevard, transforms the library experience outside its walls, providing a fresh source of inspiration.

The Garden is a unique reading porch made up of about five modular clusters of larger-than-life books, in colorful jackets and organized for climbing, sitting, or just, well, reading.

The authors featured in these oversized books have connections to Shaker Heights and the Cleveland area.

The authors and their books are:

• They Can't Kill Us All by Wes Lowery
• Kent State by Derf Backderf
• The Library Book by Susan Orlean
• The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell
• Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
• Eyes Like Mine by Lauren Cecile
• Don't Push the Button! by Bill Cotter
• Invisible Emmie by Terri Libenson
• Opposite of Always by Justin Reynolds
• Princess Cupcake Jones and the Missing Tutu by Ylleya Fields
• Stella Keeps the Sun Up by Clothilde Ewing
• The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner
• What Happened on Fox Street by Tricia Springstubb