Let me begin with a confession that my critics will enjoy. I have not read most of the books that have been taken off the library shelves at our school. I could not tell you their titles. I could not tell you what is in them, except what I have been told by people I trust. And I want to say plainly that I do not think I need to.
When the plumber tells you a pipe has to come out, you do not ask to inspect the pipe. You trust the man. In the same way, when a parent stands up at a school board meeting with a list, I trust the parent. She has a child in that school. She cares. Caring is a qualification, and in my experience it is the only one that matters.
The librarian, I am told, has a degree in this. She has spent years learning how to choose books for children of different ages, and how to match a shy reader with the right story. I respect that. But I have noticed that the more someone has studied a thing, the harder it is for them to see it simply. The parent with the list sees simply. That is her gift.
My wife keeps a small garden behind the house, and every spring she cuts the roses back hard. The first year I watched her do it I thought she was killing them. She was not. A rose does better with less of itself. I think a library is the same. Cut it back, and what is left grows stronger, or at least it grows in the direction you chose.
People ask me which books should go. I tell them I am not the one to say, and that is the beauty of it. I do not have to say. Someone else has already decided, and I can simply agree. There is a great deal of peace in agreeing with a decision you were not asked to understand.
Some will say that children need books that show them a wider world than their own. I am sure there is something to that. But I grew up with a narrow world and a short shelf, and I turned out the way I turned out. I read what was assigned. I never went looking for more, and nobody ever made me feel I should. It has not held me back from anything I wanted.
The critics say a short shelf leaves a child with fewer places to go. I say it leaves him with fewer places to get lost. A boy who has read a few good books has read a few more than plenty of men I know, and he has not been confused by the rest.
I will vote for my party’s man for the Senate this fall so that the shelf stays short. I hear the other fellow would like some of those books put back, and I would hate to have to start wondering what is in them.
I never did read much. I would like the same for them.
D. M.