Read Banned Books!
With Banned Book Week (October 1-7) upon us, we at Beth Chaim want to make sure those quieted voices are heard. Our own Nicole Scherer recently spoke in the synagogue about her experience with books and we wanted to share her words and love of books with anyone who missed it:
I’ve been a book lover my entire life. I was that kid whose parents took away my books because I was staying up too late reading and wouldn’t get up for school. I love everything about books: picking them up and turning them over in my hands, looking at the cover art, reading the synopsis and reviews on the jacket, looking through the pages to see how many chapters there are, the font choice. There are TikTok videos of people on timed runs through bookstores filling up baskets with as many books as they can in three minutes because their birthday gift is that they can buy whatever they can find and carry themselves in that time. That’s my dream come true!
But my favorite thing about books is the gifts they give me. So many gifts. Most importantly, books give me the gift of learning and feeling what it’s like to live a totally different life than mine. They give me the gift of escaping my own life, which often feels boring or filled with problems I don’t particularly want to deal with. And somehow, in escaping into someone else’s world and life, books give me the gift of finding a piece of myself, something I can relate to, in a story that may seem so different than my own. I would like to share a few of the priceless gifts given to me by some favorite books I’ve read.
Surprisingly, I didn’t grow up having magical powers. I never learned that I was secretly a wizard, but Harry Potter’s years of adventures gave me a first-class ticket on the Hogwarts Express. While I could never wave a wand, say “Wingardium Leviosa” to make something float, I felt his worry about fitting in at school, the angst over whether to ask someone to the school dance and the pressure he was under to not give in to evil. Now, I was never actually faced with saving the world, but it often feels like every decision we make has life-or-death consequences- especially when we are growing up. Harry gave me the gift of wonder.
Fortunately, I have never lost someone I love to gun violence. When I opened up Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds, Will had just learned his brother was shot. He had a gun and had just stepped onto the elevator in his building to do…something. Through Will’s eyes, I felt what it might be like to be so angry and to want revenge for his brother’s death. To understand the pressures of growing up in a neighborhood where there are unspoken rules about what it means to be a man. As I rode that elevator down with Will, the 67 seconds it took to reach the ground had me filled with anxiety, fear, anger, and grief. I thought about how so many people experience this loss and trauma every day in our country, and that I am so fortunate to not have been through the same thing. Will gave me the gift of empathy through his pain.
One of the books I’m most grateful for having in my life is Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Sáenz. If you and I have ever had a conversation about books, you already know my love of this novel. I am not a Mexican-American teenage boy, growing up in the Southwest US in the 1980s. I didn’t have a brother in prison who my family never talked about or a father who was living with the trauma of fighting in the Vietnam War. I haven’t ever had to think much about my own sexual identity, and whether it would be accepted in my world. I did bond with my kindergarten best friend over our names. They weren’t exotic philosophers like Aristotle and Dante. Instead, we were just so excited because we were both named Nicole. I do know what it’s like to know your family has secrets or things that “we just don’t talk about.” And like many of us, I know what it’s like to be a teenager desperately trying to figure out your identity, and where your place is in the world. Just wanting to belong because of who you are instead of always trying to figure out how to fit in. When on the first page Ari said, “One summer night I fell asleep, hoping the world would be different when I woke.” I mean, haven’t we all felt that at some point in our lives? Ari taught me that one true friend can truly change your life.
If you can’t tell, I could literally talk for hours about the books that I love and my connection to them. I feel so lucky to have the privilege to have read the books I mentioned and so many more. The reality is that many people can’t access these books at school or in their local libraries because they’ve all been banned in parts of this country. Those people have lost the chance to relate to people who may be different than them, to give them a chance to feel what it is like to struggle with something so different than their lives. They have also lost the possibility of feeling seen for exactly who they are. Books help us develop connection to and empathy for people whom we may never meet in our real lives, and allow people who may feel all alone in their struggle to see themselves in a story that looks similar to their own.
You may not love the same books that I do, but that is the beauty of having the freedom to choose for ourselves what we want to read. With 2,571 books challenged just last year, I’m sure we can all find at least one on that list that’s a favorite of ours, our kids, our grandchildren. By standing up to book challenges and bans, and by reading, buying, and gifting challenged books, we can make sure that the books we all love can continue to be read and treasured by generations to come.
-Nicole Scherer
