Ban a book and kids all want to read it
At Paul Ashton’s elementary school, every student — third grade and older — was expected to read a book every two weeks and hand in a written and oral report.
Like so many of Willimantic’s poor white children and the town’s growing population of Latino children, Ashton attended the Noble School, which served as a laboratory for would-be teachers studying at Eastern Connecticut State University, then known as Willimantic State College.
The place was special. As Ashton remembers it, each classroom in the school, now closed, had at least two student teachers, which meant students got a lot of attention. He remembers a piano in every classroom, and incredibly varied art and music programs. Students were encouraged to read any and everything.
The education they got there was stellar, and every year, Noble students scored high on state tests.
For their biweekly reports at the model school, younger students were guided to age-appropriate books, but those guardrails started to come off as the children aged. There was no announcement about their new freedom. It just happened.
One day, 11-year-old Ashton walked into the school library and saw a title he recognized from his older siblings’ book collection, “The Learning Tree,” by Gordon Parks. The story of Newt Winger explores Black families, violence and moral challenges. Ashton saw himself in the pages. He wasn’t a poor Black kid, but he identified with the moral choices the characters faced. He dutifully wrote his report, which somehow came to the attention of the principal, who suggested Ashton read another book. Ashton’s teacher negotiated a compromise. Ashton would be excused from giving an oral report, but he would be given credit for his written one.
Who knows why the principal stepped in? From his perspective decades later, Ashton thinks the principal wasn’t trying to censor him but that the educator was concerned about what Ashton might say in an oral report.
So, here’s what happened next: Word got around that Ashton had reported on a book that was so ... something ... that he wasn’t allowed to give an oral report on it. Eleven-year-old interest was piqued. Maybe there was something dirty in the book, and now every kid wanted to read it. “The Learning Tree” was passed around among students who otherwise might not have thought to pull it off the shelves.
Some of the young readers were disappointed that there wasn’t much salacious content in the pages, Ashton said, but it didn’t stop them from talking about the story, and here’s the beauty of that. No grownups moderated their conversations. The talks occurred organically as this pack of children on the edge of puberty discussed how they might have handled the situations presented in Parks’ classic. The conversations were unlearned, heartfelt and glorious, and they proved once again, as Ashton says now, that the quickest way to encourage an 11-year-old to read is to convince that child that doing so is a subversive act.
A few years ago, Ashton, who retired after a career with the state Department of Developmental Services, was in Boston for a Gordon Parks photo exhibition. At the venue’s gift shop, he saw a copy of “The Learning Tree,” and he bought it and brought it home to put on a shelf. Recently, amid all the discussions about banning books, he read it again. This time, he was surprised at the nuance of the tale. He doesn’t remember struggling over the text as an 11year-old. He remembers, instead, feeling a strong connection to the protagonist.
The newest book from Azar Nafisi, author of “Reading Lolita in Tehran,” is “Read Dangerously: The Subversive Power of Literature in Troubled Times,” which will be published in March. In this collection of letters about literature, Nafisi explores books as a talisman against totalitarianism. (You can hear Nafisi in conversation — for free — on March 22 through the Mark Twain House.) The book contains a wonderful list of works we should all read.
Banning books — or trying to — is an utterly American pastime and dates at least back to a colonial book that compared Puritans to a crustacean. That doesn’t mean attempting to ban books is a good use of our time. Banning books doesn’t work. We’re all 11, and we want to see what’s behind the cover. Look at the reaction after a Tennessee school board banned the Pulitzer-winning “Maus.” The book shot to Amazon’s bestseller list.
Last week, my grandson signed up for his first-ever library card. He’s been using family members’ cards, but he wanted one of his own. I admit I teared up a little and made him pose for a picture of him holding his new card. And so it begins. I intend to push him toward the banned pile. That’s where all the good stuff is.
Susan Campbell is the author of “Frog Hollow: Stories from an American Neighborhood,” “Tempest-Tossed: The Spirit of Isabella Beecher Hooker” and “Dating Jesus: A Story of Fundamentalism, Feminism and the American Girl.” She is Distinguished Lecturer at the University of New Haven, where she teaches journalism.