Summer Reading: May It Flourish

Photo Credit: Pixabay.com

I remember clearly the winter’s night my ten-year-old brother was reading a book that stirred in him an empathy I had not seen before. (After all, he was a younger brother!!) We were reading books on our living room floor, a happy night’s entertainment before television entered our lives. Our rural school in northeast Ohio welcomed the bookmobile every two weeks and we relished the opportunity to borrow books—two per student—to delight in reading on cold nights. This is circa 70 plus years ago.

That evening my brother became mesmerized by the book he was reading. He could not believe that in the story a Black boy, about my brother’s age, was not accepted to play on any baseball team he approached in his town. These were the days before the Civil Rights Bill, or integrated schools. This was immediate post World War II, long before the furnaces of hate inflamed the race riots and violence of the Sixties. And way before the days of Little League. Towns made their own leagues and we played without uniforms. All you needed was a baseball glove and you were set to go. In our little town at that time Black people lived on the outskirts in ‘shanties,’ without electricity or indoor plumbing. I’m not sure where the children went to school. On occasion, my brother and I edged into that little part of the village where these folks lived. We got to befriend some of the kids our ages. 

I only remember the cover of the book that had Marty, my brother, so entranced. I do not remember the title. Neither does he. But on the cover two young boys are smiling at each other, one Black, one White. They were holding baseball gloves and smiling as if they had just shared a belly laugh over a joke. Later, that spring, the town’s kids were excited that a local bowling alley decided to sponsor our town’s first kids’ baseball team. (I even tried out for the team under disguise and was accepted only to be rejected. Another story for another time.) 

One of the boys who showed up was a Black boy my brother and I knew from the outlying community. If my memory is correct, a bevy of boys, led by my brother, accompanied him to the ‘manager.’ His playing skills were evaluated, and he was accepted to join the team but had to borrow a glove from another boy until someone, maybe the manager, provided one for him eventually. My brother had been ‘woke’ through a book.

In my many years of teaching literature, writing, and journalism, I 

have learned to respect the stories that change us because they inform us and make us think. They do not have to make us ‘feel’ good or subscribe to a sanitized version of life. These stories shake the remnants of crusty biases we may never have thought we still had. These are stories by writers like Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, James Baldwin, and the many others with whom we swim in the currents of questioning, debating, and learning about our own fitness in the world of inclusivity and justice. 

In the sliding glacier of censorship now in place in Florida and soon in other States, biographies of monumental heroes for kids both Black and White, are being pulled from school shelves ‘for review.’ Two of the many being ‘reviewed’ are Roberto Clemente, Baseball Hall of Famer and extraordinary humanitarian who died while delivering aid to a Third World country, and ‘Hammerin’ Hank Aaron, the exceptional player who became embittered when he broke Babe Ruth’s home run record in 1974. Aaron was pummeled with hate mail and death threats as he neared Ruth’s record of 714 home runs. When he broke that record in 1974, he required police protection for himself and his family until he retired from baseball in 1976. 

I think Florida might just as well ban the New Testament because Jesus, the Savior and prophet to the poor, might not qualify for his ‘wokeness,’ his attention to the poor and the oppressed of his villages, his people who struggled to climb out of poverty all because—as Jesus told them—you must believe God loves you and cares for you. Great writing, like the Bible, can teach, entertain, empower and most important, unsettle us to search for our own meaning in every story. Like it did for my young brother through a children’s book which probably would not have been allowed for other children who are victims of the anti-woke literary police today. In a previous blog, I quoted the great writer Franz Kafka who said of literature, “A book must be the ax for the frozen sea inside of us.” Let’s teach children and ourselves how to use that ax to learn and appreciate the people and world around us, our histories, our cultures, our struggles, and our joys. Let’s penetrate the ice. Like my brother did so long ago reading a book about a boy locked in prejudice yearning to play on a baseball team. 

Reflection

During summer we will be reading romantic beach books and historical fictions plus non-fiction and maybe a classic or two. I hope you will also read spiritual books that inform you about your faith and inspire you in your spirituality. Ask your spiritual guides for these titles and scour book reviews of reputable religious newsletters and newspapers for reviews of informative books in that genre. Encourage children to read extensively, to absorb the stories of heroes who might not look like them. Perhaps the children you know do not live near the parts of their towns where other kids live in desperate poverty while yearning to play on a ball team. More than likely, the children you know can only learn about this through reading!

(Happy summer reading to all my Anonymous Angels and all my readers who welcome relaxation and beauty and learning during the glorious days ahead.)