ArcaMax

Starting at about second grade, when the novelty of reading about a family of bears started to wear off, I inhaled ghost stories. One of my favorites was "Wait Till Helen Comes" by Mary Downing Hahn. It was about dead kids, dead parents, and, the cherry on top of a trauma sundae, navigating a blended family.

I was lucky as a child. I didn't know death. I had both of my parents. While I was infinitely curious about siblings, I suspected that there were advantages to being an only child. I fought with no one in the backseat of the car.

I did think about death. What would happen to me if my parents died? How do we encounter the unknown? How could I be resilient in the face of death like the kids in the books I read? It was spooky enough of a concept to make my heart race, but not so scary that I'd lose sleep. It was a sweet spot: safe danger. The kind of thing that lets kids stretch their fear muscles without tearing them.

I'm not sure how I discovered that Hahn would be at our local mall doing a book signing. She had written a young adult novel about vampires in love with teens before it was cool. My mom, in a move that terrified her in that The Authorities would find out, took me out of school early and surreptitiously stood me in line to grab a new book and get it signed by Hahn herself. It's probably one of my favorite memories as a child.

I didn't say much to her, much like I've seen my own tongue-tied kids encounter overwhelming things, but I clutched that new book and inhaled it. Unfortunately, the book wasn't as good. (Sorry, Ms. Hahn.) Why would you want to date a hundred-year-old dude you found at a beach? Gross. And, before I had the language, I already knew that was a red flag.

That book, like other books I'd read, was a learning experience. Was I maybe too young to read it? No. Did I lack the vocabulary or maturity to fully process why a teenage girl shouldn't fall for a bloodsucking centenarian? Sure. But that doesn't mean the book shouldn't exist, or that it should be kept from other kids who might engage with it differently.

That's why the current wave of book bans feels so hollow and so personal. They aren't about protecting children. They're about gatekeeping who gets to tell their stories and who's deemed "safe" to hear them.

The books that get banned aren't the ones that glorify violence or promote harm. They're the ones that explore gender, race, identity, grief, trauma, and survival. The ones that let marginalized kids feel seen and privileged kids feel unsettled. That's not a flaw. That's the function of literature.

As a millennial, I grew up on fiction that helped me name my fears, test my courage, and make sense of the world's weirdness before I ever had the adult language for it. It made me curious. It made me compassionate. It made me question things, like whether I should trust a vampire with romantic intentions. (Did it ruin "Twilight" for me? Maybe.)

And now, as a parent, I want the same for my kids. I don't want sanitized narratives or a literary bubble-wrapped version of reality. I want them to be challenged by the books they read, and I trust librarians to help my kids and me make those choices while knowing that it's still my job to engage with what my children read.

But if our students are old enough to experience anxiety, discrimination, violence, confusion, or loss, then they're old enough to read about it. Because it's not books that hurt kids, it's silence. The real question isn't what we're protecting them from, but what we're still too afraid to face ourselves.

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Cassie McClure is a writer, millennial, and unapologetic fan of the Oxford comma. She can be contacted at cassie@mcclurepublications.com. To learn more about Cassie McClure and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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