
The good guys win in this book. And they keep winning. It’s a feel-good story with aspects that almost feel fantastical. They are so ideal by the end. It’s a satire of the current state of banned books in our country, and features different titles and their profound influence on the small community of Troy, Georgia.
The titular character is the villain, so if you meet her in chapter one and hate her, please don’t put down the book. You are in for a cast of lovable and hate-able Troy townsfolk who, chapter by chapter, build a story of both how the harm of censorship and the loss of intellectual freedom can cause chaos in a community.
When Lula Dean bans several books from the public library in Troy, the local librarian’s daughter has a plan. In the little library Lula has constructed made up of only the “cleanest” literature, Alison places the banned books under the “acceptable” book jackets.
Soon, the town is accessing the library and learning things they should learn: our country’s painful history, the atrocities of the Holocaust, gay relationships built upon love, what it means to find your voice. Chapter by chapter, we see how the readers of Lula Dean’s library access new and important ideas about humanity and history while the rest of the community remains ignorant.
The overarching theme is what books can provide us if we let them. And when we ban ideas, when we censor perspectives, we take away important stories of humanity. I would be lying if I said I got through this without leaking a few tears. The rape victim who reads Speak and finally finds her voice. The boy on the spectrum that reads Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret in order to figure out why his mother gets her period. Character after character, this book sends an inspiring book-positive and agency-positive message.
These characters “go there” when it comes to all the issues of a banned book culture: the political rise of Lula Dean, the complicated genealogy of our country as it intersects with slavery, how we revere and who we consider “heroes”, how privilege leads to storytelling that is hollow, one sided, and above all— inadequate—when it comes to the larger breadth of human experience. This book shows how stories breed perspective, breed empathy, breed a sense of belonging for people in a larger world. While books can contain ideas that are complicated and (in some cases) are harmful— banning ideas does not make ideas go away. It only covers them up, with a metaphorical book jacket so that shame, and hate, and guilt, and bigotry can build up- up-up. And those who fear progress can put their foot down-down-down on all the ideas they fear: Drag queens and sexual assault, Nazis and menstruation, feminism and Civil War heroes. All of the aforementioned are targeted in this book.
If you believe books should be banned to protect children, you will not like this book or appreciate the satire. If you are a lover of books and believe that books help us navigate and understand the world, this is the book for you.
Any book where the librarian becomes the hero the town worships is a warm place to cozy up for some winter reading.
Enjoy!
Bridgette Gallagher is a teacher and 9-12 department chairperson in the Saratoga Springs City School District. She started teaching in 2001 and became a teacher leader in 2010. She has a B.A. from St. Lawrence University in English Writing and a M.S.T. from SUNY Plattsburgh in Curriculum and Instruction. She holds a Certificate of Advanced Study in Educational Leadership also from Plattsburgh State University. She is a Teacher Consultant of the Capital District Writing project’s 2020 cohort. She enjoys spoken word poetry and personal narratives, which she enjoys teaching to her freshmen in English 9 and her seniors in Creative Writing. Her essays on teaching have been published in the Educator’s Room. Bridgette currently serves as the NYSEC Board President.