So, it’s Banned Book Week during which there’s been a lot of talk about the books that have been banned. There’s no talk about why, about just who has been hurt, or killed, by the books, about what can quantify as damage done by words lined up on paper to create an image or an idea. Nor has there been any identification of who has done the banning and what their qualifications might be.
I cannot remember not being able to read. As the middle of five children I probably learned along with the older two. But I do remember the first words I could read. Two white shakers lived on our table for years and it was from them that I found letters and sounds and words… and probably drove my parents mad as I shouted, “S A L T!” and “P E P P E R!” I entered the world of readers where I found stories that are metaphors even now.
The first hard covered book I held in my hands to read told the story of a clash between the powers of the wind and the sun (both drawn with faces and able to talk) played out on the body of a traveler dressed in a long cloak. The wind boasted that he could get the cloak off the man and blew its hardest. The man held his cloak tighter and tighter. The sun took its turn and shone hotter and hotter, until the man took off his cloak and rested by a stream.
I don’t remember any discussion of the story but time and again I see those pictures, sometimes as a clear description of the weather off my porch, sometimes as one of the defining battles of what it means to be a decent human being. These forces play out in Shakespeare, Voltaire, in both Testaments, Freud, Tolstoy, John Grisham, Louise Penny, and on and on.
They also play out in the political world right now when the forces of bombs and lies and threats of imprisonment and firings are working against the forces that care for “we the people.” Bluster, bellicosity, bloated figures, gross gold decorations do not stand well against the warmth of mutual care, sharing, helping each other.
We learn from reading. We learn to judge for ourselves what to read and what to pass by. We learn that there are hurtful items that do need to be banned. Guns killed 2581 people in 2023: in this year already 1392 people have been killed in alcohol related crashes: 400 infants died from secondhand smoke last year: globally, fentanyl has killed 70,000 per year: Americans eat double the amount of sugar necessary for a healthy diabetes-free body.
These are actual dead bodies ravaged by bullets or alcohol or smoke or drugs or sugar. Where are the bodies ravaged by reading books? Where are the midnight vigils for Harry Potter readers? Where the posted “thoughts and prayers” for the kid who stays awake to read “just one more chapter”?
From the world’s playgrounds we know the bully will always start with the youngest, the smallest, the least defended. From the world’s finances we know that publishing a book is harder than increasing the number of bullets produced. From the world of people who want to improve society we know there are poseurs who like their names in headlines and there are people who do the hard work, who do not have lobbyist money, but who work to make a difference where a difference is needed.
But books? Books do not leave dead bodies in schoolrooms. Books present black lines on paper to create images, experiences, people, ideas. Readers may not like what they read, nor are they required to. They can close the book, return it to the library, and find something they do like. There’s a lot to choose from.
I am 90 years plus some months. I have read hundreds, if not thousands, of books. The worst that has ever happened is that I once became so angry with Benjamin Franklin for making “perfection” so rational and easy that I threw his autobiography out a window. I did retrieve it and kept on reading. However, I still have heated arguments with him.
May the sun continue to shine upon us and our books, banned or not.
Marie Howard