book banning Archives - GoatKeepers Press

February is Black history month. Since Missouri is joining the rush to ban books by Black authors, I’m trying to read a few before they are yanked from the library shelves.

The local library is one of the main reasons we moved here. It has moved to a new, bigger facility, added DVDs, audio books and eBooks. It is part of a consortium of Missouri libraries so the range of materials available is huge.

Librarians and Books

This is a conservative town. When the librarians add books to the library shelves, they take this into consideration. The idea is to have books people want to check out to read.

Browsing down the aisles I see lots of mysteries, thrillers, historical fiction and romances. Westerns have their own section. The nonfiction area has books on religion, gardening, pets and livestock.

There are others, if you search. “I Am Malala” is there in the biography section along with John Wayne.

Young Adult Section

If the legislature has its way, this is where the purge will focus. “The Hate You Give” and “On the Come Up” are there along with books on suicide prevention, drugs and gender.

Such subjects might disturb some readers. The legislature wants to take them off the library shelves, burn them, make sure even those who want that information can’t see it.

That leaves those wanting information listening to people on the streets who may or may not know anything. It leaves people ignorant.

Perhaps that is the purpose. Controlling what is on library shelves controls what people know so they can be fed anything and have no way to know what is true and what isn’t. We deserve better. We deserve encouraging knowledge about our past and ourselves.

In the meantime, I will go back to my latest book “You’ll Never Believe What Happened to Lacey” by two Black sisters, Amber and Lacey Ruffin, about some of the crazy things said to and done to Black people often in ignorance of how a Black person would perceive it.

What is the power of books? Do you really love books? “The Cat who Saved Books” by Sosuke Natsukawa explores these questions.

The book is translated from the Japanese. The ideas it brings up should make you think, maybe re-evaluate your relationship with books.

Synopsis of “The Cat Who Saved Books”

Rintaro Natsuki is a high school student living with his grandfather who owns an old used book store filled with hard-to-find books. Rintaro hides himself away as a hikikomori burying himself in the books he loves and reads.

After the grandfather dies, Rintaro is left adrift. An aunt pushes him to close the shop and move in with her. He stands staring at the bookshelves thinking of nothing when he hears someone. All he sees is an orange tabby.

A tabby who announces the name Tiger Tabby and asks Rintaro to help rescue some abused books. Even as numb and uncaring as he is, Rintaro can’t refuse.

Three times the pair enter a Labyrinth. Three times they meet people who say they love books, but have somehow lost sight of that love. Each time there is a different approach to books and people’s relationships to them.

The fourth Labyrinth leaves Rintaro struggling to understand the immense power of books.

“The Cat who Saved Books” may be fiction, but books are under attack today because of their power. That power is frightening to those who would dictate to others. That power is why books are one of the first targets of such people.

Power of Reading Books

What is this immense power? Read “The Cat Who Saved Books” and find out even as you contemplate society’s changing attitudes toward books.

How do you access this power? By reading widely. It’s comforting to read only one genre or one author. By doing this you are robbing yourself.

Set a goal to read a book that stretches you out of your comfort zone once a week or a month or every fifth book. Try a book that challenges your view of the world or takes you to a time or place unfamiliar to you.

Open your mind to the power of books.

cover for "The City Water Project" by Karen GoatKeeper — So many people now seem to dislike or distrust science. In “The City Water Project” it becomes clear that we depend on science to supply, use and dispose of our water.