by Nancy Mugele
Banning books has been around for centuries. From differing political, religious, and cultural viewpoints and expression, the explanations for censorship are unlimited. This past week, a school board in Tennessee voted unanimously to ban Maus, a Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel about the Holocaust, from being taught in its classrooms because the book contains material that board members said was inappropriate for students. The move was met with harsh criticism across the country, and caused the book to top the Amazon Bestseller list in the past few days.
Art Spiegelman, the author of Maus, said he was baffled by the decision. “This is disturbing imagery,” he said in an interview last Thursday, which was Holocaust Remembrance Day. “But you know what? It’s disturbing history.”
I have been inspired this week by Holocaust Survivor Helen Fagin, whose 104th birthday is today. Helen was born in Poland. During the Holocaust she and her sisters secured false papers for themselves, which kept them alive until liberation. Helen immigrated to the U.S., taught herself English, and eventually became a professor at the University of Miami. Her love of teaching began when she was 21. She was forced into Poland’s WWII ghetto, where getting caught reading anything forbidden by the Nazis meant hard labor or death. There she operated a clandestine school offering Jewish children an essential education denied to them by their captors.
“I soon came to feel that teaching these sensitive young souls Latin and mathematics was cheating them of something far more essential – what they needed wasn’t dry information, but hope, the kind that comes from being transported into a dream-world possibility.” Literature.
Of the 22 children she taught only 4 survived the Holocaust. Many years later she met one of her students in New York. The former student introduced Helen to her husband saying she was “the source of my hopes and my dreams in times of total deprivation and dehumanization.”
Today, on Helen’s birthday, the Lunar New Year and the first day of Black History Month, we have so many stories to listen to, and to learn. And in Helen’s words: There are times when dreams sustain us more than facts. To read a book and surrender to a story is to keep our very humanity alive.
It is such an inspiring responsibility to instill a love of reading and books in students, and one that I am honored to be a part of at Kent School. Reading is so important, especially in stressful times, because stories transport us and sustain us. I encourage you to give yourself the gift of surrendering to a story with your child. Here are a few great selections all by Kate DiCamillo – Because of Winn Dixie, The Tale of Despereaux or The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane.
Happy Reading and Happy Birthday Helen.
Kent School Writes 