news about libraries and schools banning books, which seems to happen almost every year, often makes headlines; however, the current book ban landscape feels perhaps more alarming than it has in the past. In a November 2021 press release from the American Library Association (ALA) declaring its opposition to censorship of books in libraries and schools, Deborah Caldwell-Stone, Director of the Wing’s Office of Intellectual Freedom (OIF), called the volume of challenges to the books the wing had presented in the fall 2021 season “unprecedented”. “In my 20 years with the wing, I can’t remember a time when we had multiple challenges every day,” she said.
since that wing statement, a bill was introduced in oklahoma to keep books about sex, sexual identity, or gender identity out of public school libraries. And even more recently, a Tennessee County school board voted to remove Maus, Art Spiegelman’s Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel about the Holocaust, from the eighth-grade curriculum, citing the work’s use of “objectionable language.” and “disturbing images”. (Again, it should be reiterated, the book is about the holocaust.)
When we ban books, we compromise the education and development of children. Books “encourage physical, social, and emotional development,” says Ash Beckham, an LGBTQ+ advocate, activist, and speaker on leadership and diversity. “Books can give children a view of the world far beyond what they actually see every day. they not only show us what is possible, but challenge us to rethink what we know and therefore what we imagine to be possible.”
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“Books that depict people and situations that are radically different from anything [children] have ever known can trigger empathy.” —tara keeley, elementary school teacher
By opening children to people, places, and cultures from around the world, books help children develop empathy for others. “Children, by nature, start out very self-focused, so it can be hard for them to imagine lives and experiences outside of their own,” says Tara Keeley, an elementary school teacher with the New York City Department of Education. . . “Books that depict people and situations that are drastically different from anything they’ve ever known can trigger empathy [because] there are universal human experiences, like joy, pain, disappointment, shame.”
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a 2014 study of primary and secondary school students in italy and the uk found that children became more empathetic towards lgbtq+ people, immigrants and refugees after reading harry potter, a story of a boy who is different from his peers. “As human beings, we develop fear and anxiety around things we don’t know or understand,” says Elanna Yalow, PhD, an educational psychologist and chief academic officer of early childhood education. “By the time children are two years old, they will naturally gravitate towards people they are familiar with and may hesitate around people who don’t look like someone they know.” books can be a gateway to fostering acceptance, empathy, and appreciation for others.
And just as there is value in providing information about situations that readers might not otherwise consider, books can also provide representation for children who come from or identify with marginalized communities. this highlights why educators often talk about books in the classroom for two purposes: some are “mirrors” while others are “windows.”
“Mirrors” are books in which readers see themselves represented in a meaningful way, says keeley. “‘windows’ are books that can show the reader a different perspective and experiences than their own. we all need and deserve to have access to both types of books; banning books that focus on marginalized people and deal with difficult topics closes those windows and breaks them those mirrors.”
for example, keeley says she remembers reading chris crutcher’s books, which focus primarily on teens dealing with struggles like racism, injustice, disability, and abuse, for the first time in high school, which which left her feeling that someone might understand her experiences and her trauma. She “helped me put words to thoughts and feelings that she hadn’t been able to articulate before.” For her, the fact that several Crutcher books ended up on banned books lists only highlights the obstacle that action has in helping children find literary “mirrors” and “windows” that increase their self-esteem and empathy for others.
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That’s why Maus and Maus II have been a part of Keeley’s classroom library for a long time. “The way Spiegelman wrote it when a young man was interviewing his elderly father about living through the Holocaust allows us to see both the atrocities that were committed and the impact it had on him for the rest of his life,” he says. “many students have suffered discrimination or have been subjected to discrimination. can you connect the biases and wrongdoing in maus to what we’ve learned about slavery and legalized discrimination in the united states, attacks on asian americans during covid, and even less brutal but still harmful attitudes and acts than those we they have learned or first-hand experience.”
hope riseing, a book about a girl who moved with her mother from mexico to south carolina during the great depression, which was challenged in 2015 by parents in north carolina who claimed its subjects were inappropriate, is also part from his library: “addresses issues of loss of a family member, immigration, racism, how different marginalized groups can be pitted against each other for the benefit of white supremacy.”
banning books can stunt children’s curiosity about the world and other people, which is why keeley believes schools have both an opportunity and a responsibility to serve as a resource center and sanctuary for students. “A lot of them don’t have the resources one way or another to buy books or look them up in the public library and you can’t really look up what you don’t know,” she says.
Furthermore, exposing children to books that serve as “windows” and “mirrors” encourages them to seek more for themselves so they can continue to read and learn about themselves, others, history, and the world outside of their home, even if some of the words and topics they may learn in books raise difficult or uncomfortable topics. “What do we achieve by insulating our children from uncomfortable truths?” Beckham asks. “They will probably eventually learn them, and if they don’t, then we have failed in our responsibility as parents [and educators]. the truth can be difficult.”
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