On this day in 1973, school officials in Drake, North Dakota, burned copies of Kurt Vonnegut's novel Slaugherhouse-Five. The last sentence of the article where I found this bit of information reminded us that in the last several years, Harry Potter books have been burned by some churches. Somehow Hitler's burning books seems ancient and horrific history. These episodes seem chronologically very close.
I was raised reading. If I read something my parents wished I hadn't, we talked about it. I raised my daughters the same way. Reading is one of the characteristics of a free society. Today is also the 40th anniversary of Sesame Street which taught our children in exciting, new ways what a delight it was to learn. Interesting that these two anniversaries should fall on the same day. One trying to stamp out learning and freedom and the expansion of the mind. The other increasing learning, freedom and the expansion of the mind.
It is my (naive?) hope that we don't burn books any more - either literally or in some metaphorical way. We need to know. Then we need to talk about what we know. We need to agree and disagree and gnaw together the bone of knowledge so that every bit of learning is extracted from the marrow. Let's do that for and with our children and grandchildren and create a better world because of it ~ with blessings
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