Badass Pollyanna
Come Home to Yourself . . . and Raise a Little Hell Along the Way
Turning the Page on Book Banning
Book Bans, Agency, and the Fight for Our Kids’ Voices
As a youth-focused librarian, I’ve been thinking a lot about the rise in book banning these last few years. Part of me tried to separate my librarian world from my coaching world, but the truth finally clicked into place:
The issue that matters to me as a coach, matters to me as a librarian. It’s all about agency.
Agency — the ability to define your life, explore ideas, choose who you are becoming.
Agency — the right to discover your truth, not just inherit someone else’s.
And that, unmistakably, is what these bans are trying to take from young people.
The argument is framed as “parents’ rights.”
But I keep wanting to ask:
Which parents?
Because the parents in favor of banning books seem perfectly fine with violating the rights of parents who want their kids to have access. That contradiction alone tells a deeper story — one about control, not care.
And then there’s the even harder truth:
Some kids desperately need information their parents don’t want them to have.
Kids who’ve been harmed.
Kids who are questioning their identity.
Kids who just want to know they’re not alone.
Especially LGBTQ+ youth — who face higher rates of depression and suicide. Who need to see reflections of themselves in stories where they survive, where they belong, where they are loved.
Books give young people mirrors and windows.
Mirrors to see themselves.
Windows to imagine a life where their truth fits.
Book bans slam both shut.
Here’s what I wish we’d do instead:
Sit with our kids.
Ask what they’re reading.
Ask what they’re feeling.
Ask what scares them.
Ask what they’re curious about.
And then listen.
Really listen.
Because the goal isn’t to protect kids from reality.
The goal is to equip them for it.
Books don’t make kids into something they’re not.
Books reveal who kids already are — and help them understand themselves with compassion and clarity.
And that?
That’s the kind of world I want to help build.
A world where the shelves stay full, the conversations stay open, and every kid gets to become the author of their own life.
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