Taped to a side of my refrigerator is a written and illustrated response to the Marc Brown book Arthur’s Eyes. Scrawled in pencil, it says, essentially, “Arthur got glasses. Arthur hid his glasses. Arthur fond (sic) out his teacher had glasses.” For my younger daughter, who was struggling with her own myopia, this book featuring an aardvark and his friends provided both comfort and context. Anyone, even animals, can wear glasses and it’s okay.
This is what books can do. They can depict situations so that they are more accessible. They can illuminate history so that lessons can be learned. They can demonstrate differences so that tolerance can develop. They can help us to be empathetic, to be thoughtful, and to have pride in ourselves.
I guess it’s a matter of how you view the power of reading. If you think it’s a power for good, then you can trust that the simple process of doing it will not harm you and can only serve to enlighten. If you think it has the potential for evil, then even a child’s book about an aardvark having a party can become something dangerous.
The effort to ban Arthur’s Birthday because of the possibility that children might read about a kissing game is just the latest in a series of extreme acts in this country to control how books are handled, and who can handle them. Educators and librarians are finding themselves under attack, and in some cases, under arrest, for sharing books that some perceive as detrimental to those in their charge. We are rapidly becoming the dystopian society that no one wants us to read about.
Given the levels of learning loss because of the pandemic, particularly in reading, it seems obvious that the goal would be to broaden, rather than curtail, the availability of books. But instead, under the veil of “protecting our children” (and the guise of parental rights), these policies are attempting to oversee what is safe and what isn’t through a very limited lens. The result is that students in Florida, for example, now do not have the choice of reading and discussing Judy Blume’s Forever and Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye in a classroom setting, where valuable lessons can make lasting impressions.
I guess that’s the point. The impressions. Because reading can do that as well. Leave lasting impressions about character motivation, life themes and consequences.
My daughter is now nearly 29, and sometimes wears contact lenses in addition to her glasses. She is a confident adult with her own opinions, many of which I share and some of which I don’t. She continues to read and think about the world and her place in it. I’d like to think that that is the point as well.
Join the family! 
