Those banning books are harming children, not protecting them I was chatting online recently with a friend from my childhood, someone I grew up with in Southern California.
We were sharing memories of when, as kids, we would be waiting anxiously for the Long Beach Public Library’s Bookmobile to show up so we could return borrowed books we had already read and borrow others that fed our interests.
Our schools encouraged reading back then, and I’m grateful that they did. I love books still, and both Katie and I read every day.
But I don’t ever recall state leaders declaring books in our library to be “obscene” or “pornographic;” those books were behind the counter in convenience stores or in your dad’s nightstand.