Kids are back in school and there's lots of noise coming from playgrounds, classrooms, and school libraries. But it's the adults making most of the racket—and it’s time they pipe down.
During a recent summer bike ride, I pedaled past a middle school in Fort Collins. A few cars dotted the parking lot. Just the grownups were inside, preparing for the onslaught ahead.
I’m not talking about an onslaught of students. They come in waves, as they always have. But as those kids streamed through the front doors this month, they faced a gauntlet of challenges, from viruses and book bans to curriculum nannies and fears of school shootings.
In the face of all that, a lot rides on the school staff. Teachers show kids the multiverse of possibilities, and librarians heroically put books in kids’ hands to introduce them to, well, everything, everywhere, all at once. In a binary world that prioritizes ones and zeroes, teachers and librarians show kids the fabulous fractions.
When I was in ninth grade, my English teacher assigned George Orwell’s 1984, one of 1,600 books that have recently been banned from school systems across the country. 1984 freaked me out! Especially when Winston Smith, the protagonist, has a dream about a mysterious dark-eyed woman.
Orwell wrote: “With what seemed a single movement she tore off her clothes and flung them disdainfully aside. With its grace and carelessness it seemed to annihilate a whole culture, a whole system of thought, as though Big Brother and the Party and the Thought Police could all be swept into nothingness by a single splendid movement of the arm.”
Strong stuff for a 14-year-old! But also, necessary stuff.
Elsewhere in 1984, Orwell commented on Big Brother’s taste in literature: “The best books... are those that tell you what you know already.”
Enter the librarians. Their mission is to address what kids don’t know already and curate a collection of beliefs, experiences, and backgrounds that challenge them to think in new ways. No wonder librarians are feeling pressure from school boards and parent groups, with a few death threats thrown in, because that’s who we are these days. We used to think of librarians as nerdy, bespectacled, and meek. Now they need superpowers to defend the shelves—and themselves—against marauders.
This week, a parent in Douglas County challenged four books with gay and “alternative” themes. One of them is called The Hips on the Drag Queen Go Swish, Swish, Swish, by somebody called—I kid you not—L’il Hot Mess. It’s like “The Wheels on the Bus,” only with a 'be yourself' theme. Thanks for that, L’il Hot Mess! All of the threatened books deal with gender roles and relationship questions. Have you ever known a teenager who wasn’t confused by that stuff? That’s why these books are worth fighting for. The library board unanimously rejected the man’s request.
The Greeley Board of Educationrecently stood up to parent challenges on four other books. The school food fights have moved from the cafeteria to the library, with parents lobbing the tomatoes.
If librarians are the new referees in the culture wars, where does that leave the kids they serve? Especially the weird, frightened, and different ones? They’re seeing the world from the outside—or possibly, from way ahead of the rest of us.
But who can see better, or more objectively, than a kid—or a writer—who stands apart? The weird kids especially need reassurance that their perspectives are valuable.
The right book—the kind a librarian knows to recommend—can open a door to an unimagined world. One that’s unimaginable to parents, to the school board, to the internet crank. But it may be the world that a 12-year-old grows up to live in, because she helps create it herself.
