Dear Reader,
It's been almost a year since I began a new position as a youth librarian, and my job makes me so happy. I think I'm doing good work. Also, I'm tired. I walk in the door at the end of the day, and all I want to do is ride my trusty horse around Hyrule and fight goblins. As Link, in Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.
I'm tired, and I didn't make it to protests. I didn't go to school board meetings. I didn't write letters to voters. I've been telling myself that after a year, my job will be easier. I will have done all of the worky things at least once, and I'll have energy again to help bend the arc of the moral universe toward justice, but it's definitely not waiting for me to get it together.
While I have been librarying, various injustices have taken place, among them the infiltration of school boards by Moms for Liberty, a group of real-life goblins who've recently been named as far-right extremists by Southern Poverty Law Center. Right here in my California county people are trying to ban books, out trans kids, and have already, out of ignorance and fear, removed perfectly good science curriculum.
It seems that everyone is watching what's happening in places like Florida and Texas, but I hope you, reading this, are also watching what's happening in your own town—even if you don't have kids, or your kids are grown, or you don't know any kids, or you never were a kid. Maybe you know this. Maybe you're in Florida or Texas, but what I'm saying is—and I write this knowing full well that I have not done enough—check in with your librarians and teachers. Ask them what they need.
It's all bullshit, of course, but it's the book bans that hit home for me personally because if Shel Silverstein's Where the Sidewalk Ends, a book on more than one banned list, had never been placed in my hands, well, I doubt I would be writing this, or would have written anything, ever. It may sound overly dramatic to say that the book saved my life, but it is also true, which is why the best, best, best part of my library job is finding that book for a kid or a teen in the library. The book that lights them up. And, yeah, sometimes that book is The Hate U Give or Gender Queer or (gasp!) Wings of Fire.
My doctor says I need to lower my blood pressure, so when I start to get worked up about book bans, I think of Jason Reynolds' interview with Brené Brown. Here's what the National Ambassador for Young People's Literature had to say:
It's been almost a year since I began a new position as a youth librarian, and my job makes me so happy. I think I'm doing good work. Also, I'm tired. I walk in the door at the end of the day, and all I want to do is ride my trusty horse around Hyrule and fight goblins. As Link, in Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.
I'm tired, and I didn't make it to protests. I didn't go to school board meetings. I didn't write letters to voters. I've been telling myself that after a year, my job will be easier. I will have done all of the worky things at least once, and I'll have energy again to help bend the arc of the moral universe toward justice, but it's definitely not waiting for me to get it together.
While I have been librarying, various injustices have taken place, among them the infiltration of school boards by Moms for Liberty, a group of real-life goblins who've recently been named as far-right extremists by Southern Poverty Law Center. Right here in my California county people are trying to ban books, out trans kids, and have already, out of ignorance and fear, removed perfectly good science curriculum.
It seems that everyone is watching what's happening in places like Florida and Texas, but I hope you, reading this, are also watching what's happening in your own town—even if you don't have kids, or your kids are grown, or you don't know any kids, or you never were a kid. Maybe you know this. Maybe you're in Florida or Texas, but what I'm saying is—and I write this knowing full well that I have not done enough—check in with your librarians and teachers. Ask them what they need.
It's all bullshit, of course, but it's the book bans that hit home for me personally because if Shel Silverstein's Where the Sidewalk Ends, a book on more than one banned list, had never been placed in my hands, well, I doubt I would be writing this, or would have written anything, ever. It may sound overly dramatic to say that the book saved my life, but it is also true, which is why the best, best, best part of my library job is finding that book for a kid or a teen in the library. The book that lights them up. And, yeah, sometimes that book is The Hate U Give or Gender Queer or (gasp!) Wings of Fire.
My doctor says I need to lower my blood pressure, so when I start to get worked up about book bans, I think of Jason Reynolds' interview with Brené Brown. Here's what the National Ambassador for Young People's Literature had to say:
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If we were to go into any store, or if you heard about anybody going into a store, particularly let's say a grocery store or a clothing store and ... snatching a shirt off the register, taking a pair of pants—after you get over the fact that the person has committed a crime—the next thought is: Perhaps the person needed the shirt or needed the pants. They took what they did not have. So, if there are those who are taking information, taking truth, taking opportunity for discourse and growth, from our children, it's usually because ... it's something that they do not have.
... I look at this from a place of—despite it being despicable and absurd, and I feel terrible for the young people who are being robbed—the truth is that I know these kids. And because I know these kids, I almost feel more sorry for their parents, for the adults. I almost feel like, man, it's unfortunate that you don't know: 1. the power, intelligence, integrity, and promise of your child. And if you don't know it now in this moment, you may never know it, and therefore you are robbing yourself. You are robbing yourself of the potential masterpiece that you had a part in creating, which sounds so foolish. 2. I wish they understood that this generation, because of technology, because of the internet, because the world is so tiny now, it's really difficult to keep too much from (kids). So you can take the book, but you can't take the conversations they have on the internet when you're not around. You can't take the fact that they're reading about this stuff. And it's easy to say, "Well, kids will believe whatever their parents say,"—even that is a little dismissive and belittling ... their friends will be bigger influences on their lives than even their parents. I truly believe, as someone who's spent an awful lot of time with young people around America and around the world, the majority of (kids) are interested in making the world more peaceful, more equitable, fairer to all the identities that can exist within a single body, to saving the planet. Am I mad? Yes. Am I concerned? Of course. But has it stripped me of hope? Nah. These babies, they're resilient and persistent, and adults will continue to allow their inadequacies and insecurities to get in the way for as long as they can, but the time will come when they won't be able to anymore. Babies grow up. |
Babies do grow up, and with any luck they'll grow up and discover this very issue of West Trestle Review. Here we have aging, and hope and sex work. We have dancing, dysfunctional hearts, and the daily commute. We have the moon, of course, and monsters (or not?), fear and more fear, and insects, and grief, hands and dreams. We have marriage and dogs. Read up!
Thank you to our contributors: Naila Buckner, Molly Fisk, Jennifer Garfield, Anyély Gómez-Dickerson, S.K. Hisega, Emily Hockaday, Xiaoly Li, Elisa Madina, Melissa McKinstry, Michelle Menting, Amy Miller, Heather Qin, Sage Ravenwood, Carina Solis, Maw Shein Win, and Natalie Padilla Young. Extra thanks to our featured artist Cam Pietralunga. If you appreciate what you find in these digital pages (best read on a stationary device), please give our West Trestlers a shout out on social media or drop them a note. The creative life can be a lonely business.
Thanks for coming all this way,
Patricia Caspers
Founding EIC, West Trestle Review
Thank you to our contributors: Naila Buckner, Molly Fisk, Jennifer Garfield, Anyély Gómez-Dickerson, S.K. Hisega, Emily Hockaday, Xiaoly Li, Elisa Madina, Melissa McKinstry, Michelle Menting, Amy Miller, Heather Qin, Sage Ravenwood, Carina Solis, Maw Shein Win, and Natalie Padilla Young. Extra thanks to our featured artist Cam Pietralunga. If you appreciate what you find in these digital pages (best read on a stationary device), please give our West Trestlers a shout out on social media or drop them a note. The creative life can be a lonely business.
Thanks for coming all this way,
Patricia Caspers
Founding EIC, West Trestle Review
September / October 2023
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