As soon as I looked at the task description, all I could think was, leave? Don't you mean leaves? And so I understood this task to mean clues related to leaves. But was it clues about leaves? on leaves? among leaves? After mulling over the question, and failing to arrive at an acceptable conclusion, I instead found a way to cover all three:

I decided to put together a little library scavenger hunt in which I would stick paper leaves between the leaves of books in the library. With each of the leaves, I leave a clue as to where to find the next one. Each leaf has a leaf-related quote on it, and, on the back, a hint, or clue. Find the next book, and you find the next leaf. The ultimate goal is to find the gold leaf (the rest are green) which is hidden, naturally, in Leaves of Grass. The last leaf has a quote leading back to the first one, so this hunt can also be done out of order.

Anyone from sf0 is welcome to go hunting for the leaves. You now know where to find the gold one, but can you find the rest? (I tried - and sometimes failed - to keep the titles of the other books out of the photos) My only request is that you leave the leaves in place so that people from outside the sf0 community are also able to find them.

Here is what I did:

First, before I even began, I decided that if I was going to leave clues, I wanted to know whether or not someone else ever found them. Though I may never know for sure, I decided to facilitate this by putting my e-mail address on every clue. In order to do that, of course, I had to first create an e-mail address:


Then, to ensure that I would know if I received any e-mails, I set the new address to forward to my regular e-mail account.


Once that was out of the way, I was ready to begin. I started by hunting down clues about leaves on the internet. Google was rather useful for this, and Google Books was where I was able to find my centerpiece: a cool quote about leaves from Whitman's Leaves of Grass.


As I gathered clues, I kept in mind that the target texts had to be both available and relatively easy to find in the library. That is, things with Dewey numbers. In order to determine which texts were appropriate, I conducted extensive research on the public library website.


I made sure each book was available at the library and checked into the library - ideally, multiple copies. Ultimately, I chose seven quotes.


Once I had my quotes picked out, it was time to get the leaves ready. The first step was to write out the quotes - so that I would know how much space they needed. The quotes were written out with a micron pen (with its really thin point allowing for small lettering) on label stickers that I already had in the apartment. I had to give the first label a few tries before I got it right.


I also wrote out a special message for the back of each leaf, but the photo of that is on a completed leaf and appears later.

The next step was to draw the leaf shape. My original plan was to make many differently shaped leaves, so I had to look at a variety of leaf photos - or so I thought. Google once again came to my rescue with this image:


Before I could choose my leaves, however, I had to choose my paper. I had originally planned to use construction paper - which I have in my apartment - but I realized that if I was going to leave things in library books, I wanted them to be nice things, things people might not run to throw away. So I turned to the paper I use for my decorative papercuts - it's sort of like cardstock, and it has a nice texture. I chose four potential leaf colors. Here is where I came up with the idea of making the final leaf gold.


Then, it was time to draw my leaves. I had intended to make many kinds of leaves, but I soon realized that the shapes of the label stickers were really only conducive to using one type of leaf. Any other shape would use far more paper, and this was not, after all, just construction paper. So, I drew the one leaf to use as my template.


Then, I traced my leaf...


... and transferred it onto the cutting paper.


Next, I used my exacto knife to cut out the leaves...


... and also to cut out some internal lines - again, because I wanted it to look nice.


Here is a photo of all of the leaves together:


Next, I attached the labels to the front. Here is what a few of them looked like:


Here is the gold one:


And then the back: Here is where I revealed the goal of the hunt, placed my Dewey hint, and included my brand new contact info.


At long last, late into the evening, the final leaf was completed, and they were ready to be placed into the books. Alas, the library was closed, because city budgets prevent it from being open around the clock.


I had to wait until the following afternoon to finally venture out to the library. I navigated a treacherous, construction-riddled path.


Thankfully, I reached my destination unharmed.


I began with Leaves of Grass, and found the page with the quote on it. The gold leaf, with the quote for Book #1, was inserted.


Then, I closed the book, but left the leaf sticking out, like a bookmark, so that it would stand a better chance of being found.


Finally, I stuck it back on the shelf. I left it out a bit while I took the photo, then pushed it the rest of the way in.


As much as possible, I tried to stick the leaves on the page with the quotes. I consulted the index in one book to help me with this.


Here five more leaves, all in place:



I did get confused once or twice about which leaf went where, but I finally got it all worked out. The only problem I ran into was with the final book - the book itself was not there, so I had to stick the leaf into something like a Cliff Notes.


At last, my task completed, I headed home - by a different, safer route.


I do not know whether any of my clues have been found yet, and I may never know, but I am watching my in-box eagerly for any word that the quest has been completed.