What children (and everyone else) need to read | Donna Jo Napoli | TEDxSwarthmore

This talk was given at a local TEDx event, produced independently of the TED Conferences.
Children's books often are banned because people feel that the vulnerability of childhood gives them the right and responsibility to protect children. They see books that touch on certain topics as dangerous. Although the motivations of these adults are understandable, Napoli argues that the top 12 reasons why books are banned are actually reasons why books should be read. She will wonderfully discuss the unprotected child and the protected child and what these books do for each.

I'm very happy to be here,

very happy to see your beautiful faces.

In 2008, I gave a presentation

to a librarian group
in Salt Lake City, Utah,

and afterwards, someone
stood up and asked me

why I write about
such terrible things for children.

It was not a friendly question.

(Laughter)

There are many reasons
why books get challenged

with the hopes of banning them,

the 12 most frequent being:

offensive language,

explicit sexual descriptions,

incidents of violence
or brutality, including rape,

disparagement of family values,

treatment of satanism,
via cult or witchcraft,

New Age anti-religious stories,

examples of racism,

examples of substance abuse,

materials that include
depressing or morbid topics,

attacks on patriotism,
or established authority,

texts that include anti-feminism or sexism,

and derogatory imagines of the handicapped.

I can understand why people

who work with and live with children

might assume the right
and responsibility to protect them.

Children are vulnerable,

their brains are different.

And people may think
that by controlling the way

in which children encounter
the things on this list,

they are protecting them.

Certainly, one can see

how the things on this list are important.

Look at sexuality,

when sexual experiences,
whether real or imagined,

can influence your sexual identity,

and your sexual identity can affect

whether or not you are able
to form a lasting relationship

that can carry you through life.

Look at religion.

If you are a person of faith,

you may very well want to make sure

that the children that you love

share this faith.

I understand these things.

Yet, I write about all the things
that are on this list.

I have a book called
"Song of the Magdalene,"

that takes place in the first century,

in the land we now call Israel.

The main character has epilepsy,

she falls in love with someone
who has cerebral palsy.

In that time and place,

people with physical
and mental maladies were pariahs,

so there is quite a lot
of derogatory images of the handicapped.

And the main character is raped.

In "Alligator Bayou,"

which takes place in 1899
in Tallulah, Louisiana,

we are in the middle
of the Jim Crow South.

The society is stratified
along racial lines.

Sexism, my goodness,
nobody was even aware of it!

The book is full of racism and sexism,

and there is a lynching.

In "Three days," which is a story
that takes place contemporaneously,

a little American girl
is driving with her father in Italy.

He has a heart attack,

he manages to pull off
the side of the road safely,

but he dies,

and this little girl is waiting

until someone finally picks her up.

And the people who pick her up,

want her for their own reasons.

So, why on earth do I do these things?

You know, the last thing I want
to do, as a writer for children,

is hurt my reader.

I love to tell a good story,

a funny, scary, mysterious, whatever story

but terrible things draw me.

Am I hurting children?

Let's look at the child

who is growing up with plenty to eat,

good food, her own bed,

a place to study,

she goes to a school where the teacher
cares about what she's learning

and works very hard to make it a good day.

There are people who talk
to her and listen to her,

and she can talk to them.

This is a loved child.

This is a protected child.

Let me set this child aside
for the moment.

And let's look at the child

who maybe doesn't have
her own bed to sleep in,

maybe doesn't sleep that well,

maybe there is no blanket
to keep her warm,

maybe she went to bed hungry,
she wakes up hungry,

she goes to an underfunded,
overcrowded school.

Maybe she's very much loved,

but the socio-economics
of the situation are such

that she is battling
a number of things constantly.

And then, there are other children,

who are not so much loved.

And this has nothing to do
with socio-economic status

or race, or religion, or ethnicity,

none of that.

We all know that all kinds of things
happen behind closed doors

in every sector of our society.

So these are the unprotected children.

What happens to an unprotected child

when they read a book

in which the main character
is also unprotected?

One things that happens,

is that they find out
that they are not alone.

Children often do not talk
about the problems that they have.

Sometimes because they know

they can't do anything about it,

so, what's the point of talking about it?

Sometimes, because they are loyal

to the people that they love.

Sometimes it could be because of fear.

If you tell and people believe you,

maybe you'll be snatched from
your family, and then what?

And if you tell and people
don't believe you,

then you have to go back
to the situation you were in,

and deal with the people
who know that you told on them.

It could be much worse.

So, there you are!

You are alone, and you don't know

what other people are dealing with.

There, in a book, you find out!

This person talks to you in a way

that maybe no one else
in your life talks to you,

in a more intimate way!

If you have done something terrible,

really done it or just imagined it,

you may think you are an awful person,

and there, in a book, you'll find out

that absolutely ordinary people

do terrible things
and think terrible thoughts.

There's no one as lonely
as a child who thinks

that she's the worst person ever.

In a book you find out
that you are not alone.

If terrible things are happening to you

and you don't know
they happened to other people,

you can feel that maybe
there's something about you

that make them happen to you!

Maybe there is something wrong with you.

Maybe it's your fault.

You can suffer guilt.

There, in a book, you see this child
did nothing to make it happen to her!

But it's still happened.

Terrible things happen
to good people all the time.

It's very comforting.

Or you may think

that you're the only one it's happening to

and you develop
a big chip on your shoulder,

you're angry about it,

you don't understand
that lots of people around you

are coping with things
that they are not talking about either.

So, it can give you
a wonderful perspective

that allows you some consolation.

Another thing that reading
these books can do,

is give you hints, help

in coping with your situation.

Not that these books are going to deal
with the same situation that you're in,

they may be dealing with something

that's very different
from what you are in.

But you see somebody persisting,

being resilient,

being resourceful,
looking for help in different places,

and it gives you some ideas
of how you might go about

trying to manage.

Now, sometimes,
the problems that a child faces

are child-sized problems,

and are something
that the child can influence.

But sometimes, they are not!

Children are our least
powerful members of society.

So, these books over here,

they better not be saying

that the child can solve
an enormous problem.

Richard Pak,

one of the wonderful writers for children,

says: "Writers for children

cannot afford to traffic in happy endings,

because if we do, we risk leaving
our reader undefended."

It is very important for the child

who is in a situation
that they cannot change,

to see what happens to a child

in another situation
that they cannot change.

It is my job,

or I think it is my job
when I am writing a story,

to let a child know that

you may not be able to change your world,

but with hard work and good will,

you will be able to find a way
to live decently within your world,

even if it's only inside your head.

Hope, peace, even joy,

can be a strictly internal matter,

an it's very important
for children to see that!

So, these books can be a life line
to the unprotected child.

And now let's take
the child that is protected,

and take a look at this child!

I want to argue that this child
needs those books even more.

For one, the child
will not always be protected,

you cannot put your child
in a cotton-lined box for life.

The child will burst out,
the box will be crushed from outside.

Things happen to people.

We don't live charmed lives,

and everybody needs
to learn coping skills.

In the book you can see somebody coping,

and it can help to prepare you
for when you need to cope.

But even more than that,

I think the child who is protected

really needs these books,

because without them,

if this child grows up

with only good things happening

and unaware

that terrible things
can happen to people like them,

they run the risk of becoming
intolerant and intolerable people.

They run the risk of walking
past a homeless person,

who is emaciated,
and perhaps, stinking,

and thinking, "It's his own damn fault!"

They think that all the good things
that have happened to them,

have happened because they merited it,

they worked hard, they had a good spirit.

They don't recognize
the role of luck in their lives.

People can work hard and have good spirits

and have lousy luck.

In a book, you crawl
inside the skin of someone else,

you live what they are living,

you come to understand it,

you gain empathy.

Empathy is the corner stone
of civilization.

Without empathy, we are each
just in our little spots,

taking care of ourselves,
and our children.

Who cares about the neighbor?

Empathy allows us
to understand why we pay taxes,

why everybody deserves an education,

shelter, food, health care.

Empathy makes us decent people.

And there is no safer way

for a child to learn empathy,

than through a book.

I want to bring this down to the personal.

When I was a child,

my favourite book was
"A Tree Grows in Brooklyn."

I grew up in a family
with a lot of problems,

that got realized in a number of ways,

one of which was
financial insecurity, instability.

One of my worst memories of childhood was

coming home in the third grade
to find everything that I owned,

- and I didn't own that much,
I was just a little third grade kid,

but everything that I owned,
mattered to me! -

to find everything that I owned
out on the sidewalk,

because we have been evicted yet again.

And I didn't know whether or not,

anyone else was coping
with this kind of thing.

Kids didn't talk about it at school.

But in "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn,"
I saw Francie Nolan coping with poverty.

It was very consoling to me!

It gave me a perspective that allowed me

to enjoy a lot of things about my life.

In that book, there was also a man,

at the foot of the stairs,

who was essentially a monster.

And Francie was very afraid of him,

and he had gotten other girls.

He does not get Francie,

and I was very glad
that he didn't get Francie.

I would not have wanted him to.

But I would have given anything

to be able to read a book

about the girl who did not escape

the man at the foot of the stairs.

To me, it would have been a lifeline.

So, those books just were not available.

Today they are.

And I am very grateful for that.

And thank you very much.

(Applause)