I have a t-shirt I love because it has a beautifully defiant quote from LeVar Burton, one of my heroes, on it: “Read the books they don’t want you to read. That’s where the good stuff is.” It’s the best kind of rebellion! The kind that opens instead of narrowing the mind, like John Lewis’s “make good trouble.”

And, because I’m that kind of person, I just can’t leave it there. I agree with the quote and I argue with it. Look, I have a friend who’s an atheist who was asking me about faith and I think she almost fell over when I cheerfully said, “Oh no, I argue with my God and my religion all the time. It doesn’t give me any kind of peace; it gives me trouble.” I can’t not argue. Look, if I argue with God and even with Maurice Sendak, which I do, them obviously I’m going to argue with LeVar Burton, too.

Now, the basic truth is simple: in the USA right now, kids’ books are under attack. A few samples of things happening include: Elementary school teachers having to pack up all reading books from their classrooms, public libraries receiving vicious hate for having certain books on the shelves, teachers being punished for using certain books in classes, and much more. Authors and illustrators have also been more directly attacked for their work, and schools and teachers have been hounded for inviting authors to speak to classes. The list of authors and illustrators targeted is long and characteristics are intersectional: being too anything will get you scrutinized, whether for race, gender presentation, religion, sexual orientation, or having an opinion once in a time. I don’t know, the book banners are looking for any excuse, really. In a nutshell: book banning in the USA has skyrocketed, and it’s my impression that a large number of people don’t even realize how bad it’s gotten.

At a recent dinner, someone asked me if I’d experienced anything like this firsthand, and the really sad thing is that, yes, I have. I have, at a job I was doing, been asked more than once if I could, you know, not do so much of that diversity thing, in a nutshell. I wasn’t asked in writing, it was very quiet, it was one-on-one. That’s the other side of this: everything I listed above is only what you see in the news. How I can promise you it’s really bad is the rest of it, the stuff you don’t see. I promise you, and I wish I were wrong but I know I’m not, that the quiet censorship and self-censorship is much, much more prevalent and much, much worse than anyone thinks.

Which is why when my interlocutor at dinner went on to state indignantly that there were even LGBT books for kindergarteners these days, my goodness, really!, I saw red, and quietly but firmly said I thought we disagreed about this topic. In a later conversation with a friend, I was mulling over the conversation and noted that I probably dislike many of the books in kindergarten classrooms on any topic, and I was doubtless more critical of them than my conversation partner at dinner, but I was adamant they shouldn’t be banned… And it made me think, again, about that LeVar Burton quote. Well, LeVar, what if it’s not good?

Here’s the thing: I’m snobby and old-fashioned and part of what I do here is slow, meticulous reading and analysis of books I consider somewhere on the scale from very good to excellent because I stubbornly insist on quality books for children. Since I staunchly believe in positive reinforcement, I insist on slow analysis rather than punchy taglines– I want to show I take the books seriously, and I prefer to spend my time and words here elevating the good and excellent. What no one here sees is that when I’m not being nice about books on here, I spend a lot of time muttering and throwing aside books I don’t think are good enough. I rant. I show books to my friends and say things like, “Why a board book, board books are so hard to get right, this should never have been done as a board book, for crying out loud! Don’t people realize that most board books out there should never have been published as they were?”

So when I see the staggering, awful lists of banned books, and believe me they break my heart with sadness and outrage, on another level my eye is scanning the lists and my brain is sorting the books out, coldly assessing which ones I would put on my own shelves. And you know what? Some are truly phenomenal. Others are bad. A large number is simply meh– mediocre at best. And I have yet to see more than a tiny handful of books which, truly, should be removed from classes, and those only because they’re really out-of-date and there are better books, for crying out loud, not because they should be banned on moral grounds.

Let me give an example of an excellent book which has been removed from multiple classes by now and I really think should be the poster book for any defense against the book banners. Removing this from any class or library is truly outrageous: A Big Mooncake for Little Star by Grace Lin.

Honestly, the book is a masterpiece of gentle subtlety: it blends tangible reality (mother and child baking together, the temptation of a sweet treat, the sensory pleasure of a nibble of pastry and scattering crumbs) with the dreamy mythical feel of a story to explain the phases of the moon. The rootedness in Chinese customs gives heft and substance, while the nighttime art makes it a universal bedtime story, allowing any child to feel lulled to sleep in the sweet moonlight. It’s basically perfect, and the only possible rationale for kicking it off the shelves is sheer racism.

But, today, I’m here to defend not only the excellent. I can’t pretend that anything banned is good, because I’m stubborn. I really, truly want to spend my time pushing for excellence in children’s literature: I want more books of the caliber of A Big Mooncake for Little Star. I want really good books for all children, and I want all children to get to read books featuring stories from any culture, and I want publishers to have editors and readers pushing those books to true excellence.

And that’s why I’m royally pissed off that I’m having to spend so much time these days thinking about defending books I don’t even like, because, unlike some people who may or may not currently be in political office in Florida and who have really crap taste in books, I know that you have to give everyone broad access to books. In fact, kids need access to the crappy books, too. (Some of the books the Changeling reads make me cringe. Some of the books I read make me cringe, too.)

What do I not talk about? Well, I’ve been choking for days watching wonderful authors and industry professionals laud a book I really, truly believed needed to be set aside as a manuscript to marinate and then be pulled out for a fresh look and several rounds of new edits in order to be an excellent book. Right now, I do not think the book is excellent, and I find it more frustrating to see it in what feels to me like an unfinished state than to read merely banal picture books. I see how it could have been great. But to my eye it is not. (I can say this freely because it happens so often that I know no one will guess who I’m talking about– and don’t ask me, I will not tell you, I do not criticize authors even when I do not personally like them!) I have successfully not been a brat about it, not stormed over to a single library, and not tried to lead a parade of people on the internet or in person to destroy the author’s career. Remarkably, I have managed never to do that sort of thing in my life.

I am, in fact, prepared to be happy for any child who benefits from this book– and I’m sure some will! That’s wonderful, because even if I think the book could have been better and could have had better reach and more of a future had the editor and author given it another few months or even another year of work, if any kids love it now, as is, that’s better than it not happening at all. I can’t make those behind the scenes decisions, but I can take charge of my behaviour now. I quietly do not do negative reviews, and I loudly praise excellent books. But, these days? I’m also doing what I can to defend access to all books, for all children.

So, perhaps, this is me mostly talking to myself, but maybe you, too, need the reminder: this isn’t about defending books for being good. Right now, all books for children are under attack. And, unfortunately, we can’t limit ourselves to defending excellence in children’s literature. That’s the ultimate goal– I want to get back to pushing for excellence. Right now? I just want kids to be allowed to read at all.

And, yes, it’s that serious.