How it’s supposed to work: Lolita.

There are people in our community who think we have inappropriate books in our library. Some have gone so far as to accuse us of having pornography available to children.

What kind of a world view would accept this at face value? What kind of people do you think go into teaching?

This is simply an ugly, false accusation arising out of paranoid fear. Period. Both sides in this debate have accused the other of deceit. A handout at a recent school board meeting would have you believe that Lawn Boy, the coming-of-age novel by Jonathan Evison that deals with strong subject matter, is available to 11 year olds in our district. This is plainly untrue. The Lawn Boy that elementary and middle school kids can read is by Gary Paulsen, about a boy who receives a lawn mower from his grandfather and starts a lawn-care business. There was only 1 copy of Evison’s book at one of our high school libraries and to date, no student has read it.

Let’s get our facts straight, people. Can we take a moment and see how fear is warping our community? People seem bent on believing the worst lies about our teachers and librarians. This can do no good. 

But what about the books in our high school libraries that do contain mature subject matter? Yes, there are those books, many considered masterpieces, winners of Pulitzers and Nobels. Why should they be available to our high school students?

Once not long ago, a teacher at one of our high schools took her students to the library to choose independent reading books. The librarian had spread out a smorgasbord of wonderful books on tables by theme and book-talked them to the kids. One girl went into the stacks and came out with a different book: Lolita by Nabokov.

For those of you who do not know (and evidently Moms For Liberty are in this group, for they have not yet asked to ban it), Lolita is the story of a 35 year old man who predates a 12 year old girl. He actually neglects to save the child’s mother from a fatal accident and takes off with her, initiated a years-long sexual affair. It caused an absolute scandal when it was published and has also been recognized as one of the towering achievements in literature in the 20th century.

The girl’s teacher saw the book in her hands and began a conversation. “Do you know what that book is about?” “Yes, I do,” replied the girl. She proceeded to the check-out desk. The librarian asked her again: do you know what it is about? Are you sure you want to read that book? The teacher joined the conversation and she assured both of them that yes, she did want that book. 

 Later, in the classroom, the girl confided to the teacher, “This happened to me.” 

Let’s stop here and take a moment to sit with that. Here we have a survivor of abuse, seeking out a fictional treatment of what she herself has endured. This is the whole point of books and of literacy: to put into powerful words all of human experience and somehow contain it, give us power over it, possibly even make it comprehensible.

It also gave the teacher the opportunity to help the girl. She asked if her parents knew. The girl said yes, they did. The teacher went to the guidance counselor, who called the parents, who assured the counselor that yes, they did know and yes, that book was appropriate for their daughter, who was healing in their care. The book did its job and helped the community around that girl help her.

If we rid our libraries of such books, we say to our students: you’re on your own. Don’t expect to find help here. Reading won’t illuminate your path, bring you comfort, dignify your suffering. Nope. You can read happy books about doves and unicorns and no one will ask you about what happened to you or help you process it. You are alone, possibly freakish in your isolation, and you will never see your experience reflected in what you read.

If we rid our libraries of such books, we say to all the other students: there is no help here in making sense of the world. Your friends who have suffered? They’re on their own. Preventing such a thing from happening to you? No, we aren’t interested in that. We want you ignorant and innocent, defenseless, even, because it’s too frightening to us to face the fact that the world is a mixed bag and you’re in it. We want you intellectually bubble-wrapped because of our own terrors.

To the parents who are survivors of assault or who know those who are: while this is an agonizing subject, we cannot prevent it by ignoring it.  High school students have the right, and indeed the need, to learn about the world, even its darkest corners. We have these books in the libraries not to corrupt but to inform, to illuminate, to educate our students, and to dignify the human condition.

We must not let the terror of some in our community twist our decisions for our kids.

Banning books helps no one.