Boxes of yellow and green Crayola
markers and other school supplies fill the shelves of our neighborhood grocery
store. You know what that means. It’s back to school time! A time when joyful
parents anticipate the end of summer vacation and high school kids scramble to
complete their summer reading assignments.
We librarians on the front lines –
the reference desk - are besieged by kids who have to write a report or do a
project based on a class-assigned book selected by their teacher. And it’s due
tomorrow! And all the copies are checked out! It’s a desperate time.
Back in the day – cue the black and
white newsreel accompanied by old timey piano music – summer really was a vacation
from school. Summer reading meant books of our own choosing, books taken musty
and soft from the shelves in a lakeside cottage, or pulled from the hushed and
dim recesses of a city library, or borrowed from a friend. We chose our own
books.
Today’s kids, overscheduled with
enrichment camps and sports leagues, now have math packets and civics
assignments and book reports to complete in the break between the last and
first days of school. They have assigned reading shouldering aside those last
chances for a book of their own choice.
Here in the land of the helicopter
parent, where every child is gifted (take that, Lake Wobegon), teachers assign
a summer reading book carefully.
What’s new in this school-assigned
summer reading?
Summer Reading Lists in my county now
come with a warning:
“Please note that the books on this
list may contain mature content and/or controversial material (i.e. offensive
language, violence, and/or implied or explicit sexual situations). The
resources listed below can be used to see book reviews and get more information
about the books we will use in our class.”
Sure, I want to roll my eyes. Does
everything, even literature, have to come bubble wrapped with a safety warning?
But part of me is also amused and more than a bit pleased. I know the schools
are just trying to ward off outraged parents, but this is an affirmation of what
I’ve believed for a long time: Reading can be a dangerous undertaking. Imagine
all those new ideas and epiphanies lying in wait for Cayden and Sophia.
Literature can change minds, wound hearts, scar psyches. I know this wasn’t the
motivation for the warning, but I can’t help getting a kick out of this
unintentional nod to the power of books.
