Where I FOUND MYSELF GROWING UP in a small town in Mississippi, JESMYN WARD LEARNED about EMPATHY-and IDENTITY–through the BOOKS in her elementary-school LIBRARY

In my memory, my elementary school was small and standard for a poorer, rural Mississippi town. The brick was the color of an old scab. There were three buildings: an auditorium with classrooms, a newer structure with squat ceilings and cinder-block walls, and an ancient cafeteria that had been there since my mother’s time.

- JESMYN WARD

She was one of the first Black students to attend the school when it was integrated in the ’60s. I’d imagine 20 years later, as I ate my packed lunch in the cafeteria, that slant-walled building looked much the same as it did back then: all peeling, sun-bleached wood, with box fans going strong in the windows because it had no central air or heat.

Even though it was old and dingy, I loved my school. I loved the tiny square playground where I spent most of my recess hours, surrounded by tall pine trees in an amphitheater of living green. I spent long moments looking up at their crowned heads, trying to discern some dialogue in the way they swayed in the wind or nodded in the breeze. I loved the small courtyard near the cafeteria. It was where I first learned that if I stood very still and studied the sky, the clouds would move like great boats overhead, casting their cool shadows on the concrete and grass.

"Finding JOY in the midst of these BOOK BANS is easy because, although the PROLIFERATION of these BANS reflects a DANGEROUS SUPPRESSIVE and ANTIDEMOCRATIC SURGE across our country, COMMUNITIES and particularly YOUNG PEOPLE are FIGHTING BACK, are demanding a FREEDOM to READ and LEARN and be UNCOMFORTABLE." NIKOLE HANNAH-JONES