LETTER EIGHT

Prof. Gyaan!

Your ode to books and reading and inevitably, dreaming, was a joy to receive. In ‘Art Matters’, Neil Gaiman maps out these clearly defined routes to freedom: Knowledge and Art. I wonder why our schools make us feel otherwise. Why aren’t we taught to befriend books? Perhaps our textbooks feel like foes.

Books have always kept me company. They didn’t demand my attention like lectures at school often did. They captured it, organically, word after word, page after page, every character, location, plot, discovery, so distinctive from the next.

Sometimes, I’ve found myself in them. To know that the thoughts I’ve had, the feelings I’ve felt and my approach to life at different ages and stages aren’t mine alone. Someone is me and I have been that someone that I have never personally known. But I have. And I have felt held, understood, may be a little more taken care of.

That’s what libraries do for some of us. They take care of us – our space, our minds and our mind space. By expanding it, making it forever open.

You know what else they are? Inclusive. Libraries are for everyone and we feel safe inside them.

When are schools going to feel like that?
Like home; Like shelter.
For all – Across classes, across backgrounds, across any other differentiators.
May be then we’ll want to go to them. A little more every day.

Still reading,

X

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