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Banning books and rewriting the world
when you feel like an octopus in a pot
(As per usual: This is just my opinion. It might not be yours! In this case, these are also my actions, and it might not be yours! That’s ok. It doesn’t make either of us bad people. So like, take that into account.)
It’s easy to feel frozen right now. It’s hard to stand sometimes, reeling backward over and over as terrible things happen. I often feel helpless. Sometimes, all I feel I can do is try to curl up in a protective ball, to protect me and mine. I feel like a small octopus, curled inside a pot. Pots feel safe, but they are also traps. It’s dark, and sad, and the outside of the pot is somehow worse.
Mr. Rogers always said to look for the helpers. I think so many of us internalized that as children. I see it posted over and over on social media. It’s sweet, nostalgic. It gives us hope, that if we look hard enough, we will find someone who will help. Who will fix the living nightmare we woke up to.
It’s also a copout. Because Mr. Rogers was giving that advice to children. The helpers they are supposed to look for? Adults.
We are not children anymore.*
Some of us aren’t suited to be leaders (I’m sure not), we’re not suited to saving the world on our own. But we can participate. We can be the helpers. We may not feel safe exposing our soft bodies. But we can stick a tentacle out of our pots in the name of things we believe in.
This is why I was so grateful to hear of the start of Authors Against Book Bans. It does just what it says on the tin, asking authors to write to school boards, show up at meetings, support librarians, and otherwise support the freedom to read. I joined the instant I heard of it. I’m useless in many ways, but I AM an author.
So I was happy to volunteer when they asked for letters for a school board in Florida, one bent on banning any book that hints that there might be such a thing as pleasurable sex or LGBTQIA+ people. I did indeed write the letter, and I sent it to their school board (several of them even wrote me back). I wanted to take the opportunity to share it with all of you.
Dear Members of the School Board,
My name is Bethany Brookshire, and I am a science writer who writes for children and adults. I am also the author of the publicly-acclaimed non-fiction book Pests: How Humans Create Animal Villains.
I am writing to express my concern at the efforts to remove books from the X COUNTY Public Schools. While my book has not been banned in the United States, large portions of it have been censored in China. This is not because the stories I tell are untrue. It is true that efforts to eradicate sparrows in the late 1950s in Communist China contributed to the mass famine that followed—a famine that killed millions of people. Instead, my book has been censored because historical truth goes against the story the Chinese Communist Party wishes to tell about their past. This famine is in living memory for millions of Chinese living today. But schools teach a sanitized, government-approved version. Young people in China do not know the full history of their own parents and grandparents because of their government.
When school boards or parents demand to ban books simply because they do not agree with the values some people hold, they also attempt to write a story of their own—a story where other beliefs or values don’t exist. Banning a book doesn’t make those values disappear. Censoring my book did not make the famine less devastating. Instead, it served only to make those who come after ignorant of their history—ignorant of the world they live in.
Our kids deserve more than ignorance. They deserve to learn about the world around them, they deserve our trust in their intelligence. They deserve to know about the world they will inhabit. If a parent does not wish their child to read a book, then they can enforce that with their child. If a book is inappropriate for a child, a librarian will guide the child toward something else. Their knowledge of their young readers is unparalleled. I urge you to trust your own children. To trust parents to parent their kids appropriately, and librarians to understand their readers. Our children will only build a better world if they understand their current one. And that means the freedom to read.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
Sincerely,
Bethany Brookshire
Thanks for reading Team Trash: Where People and Wildlife Meet! This post is public so feel free to share it.
One of the things that baffles me (and I’d love someone more versed in this than I to write about it), is just how many of these people seem terrified to trust their own children. To believe that their kids are smart, and flexible, and can ask questions about what they read. Why are we all so afraid of our own kids?
This letter is small. It probably won’t change the outcome. But I will keep sending it, in various forms, where it needs to go. This is my tentacle, creeping outside of my pot.
Are you in a pot? How are you fighting off the darkness?
Where have you been?
I hope it’s reading about this guy (from Florida, of COURSE he’s from Florida) who went so hard on the keto carnivore train that cholesterol started coming out of HIS HANDS.
Maybe it’s reading about fossilized puke. Or well, fossilized spitup. Whatever this fish tried to eat it didn’t stay down.
Yes it’s been cold and yes rat pops will go down because of it. But as you will find below….don’t relax.
There are tiny corals that can WALK! Not like…speedwalking, mind. It’s more like if you put a snail in slo-mo. But they can still go! That’s from
I love NPR coverage of the joy that is Stick Nation. Really it’s lovely to be scrolling and there’s a video of someone showing a cool stick.
A reminder that trans people have always existed, in every society. This is not new, and many cultures have just let people live their lives! Not so hard!
Very sad I didn’t get to write this one about how peeing in chimps is contagious. High ranking chimps pee, and it…trickles down the social ladder. Get it?
Where have I been?
Writing more news means…well I’ve been all over the place!
One of the most widely used tests of self-awareness is whether an animal can recognize itself in a mirror. Turns out? Wild baboons fail the test.
Some like it hot, and those some are rats. A new study showed that as temperatures increased in cities over time, they reported more rat complaints!
You can die of a broken heart. The condition is called takotsubo cardiomyopathy, and it’s way more common than you think (though luckily, not often deadly).
In SciAm I wrote a love letter to my joints. They were right, I am going to miss them when they’re gone.
Thanks so much to Atlas Obscura for interviewing me about pests! “In asking us to consider our place in these conflicts, Brookshire proposes that, while animals associating with humans is inevitable, villainizing them doesn’t have to be.”
Where WILL I be?
Hello Canada! Tomorrow morning, that’s Monday, February 3, I’ll be doing a live interview on Mornings with Simi about takotsubo cardiomyopathy! Literally, I’ll be talking about heartbreak. How appropriate for February.
And on Saturday, February 15, I’ll be at Nerd Nite, giving a talk on pigeons. And why you should LOVE THEM.
*I am aware that some people do still need more help than they can personally give. I’m aware that #notallpeople can do exactly what I do. It is in fact the duty of those who CAN do more to help people who can’t. This is not advice. It’s just an opinion. This isn’t about you personally. The world is burning but there’s still grass to touch.