Shout

by Laurie Halse Anderson

asked the librarian “Can I take out all the books?” and she answered quite seriously “Of course, dear, just not at the same time.”

And so, with extra Leslie help and a chorus of angels disguised as teachers and librarians for years unstinting with love and hours of practice, those ants finally marched in straight lines for me shaped words, danced sentences, constructed worlds for a girl finally learning how to read I unlocked the treasure chest and swallowed the key.

and ninetyish voices, some cracking, some strained under weights unseen, murmurated, a flock of swooping starlings, harmonizing, resonating, shaking the windows in the pain, bending the laws of physics to the pure hearts of children for the length of a song from a Broadway musical that made two brilliant, kind, ignored women cry briefly and lifted us to a place we weren’t old enough to understand.

untreated pain is a cancer of the soul that can kill you

ignorance We didn’t get our textbooks in health in tenth grade until the cold stripped the trees in late November cuz the school board ordered the books to be gutted, they demanded that the sex chapters be surgically removed so explanations of the menstrual cycle and pics of diseased penises wouldn’t send us into frenzied orgies in the halls or cause us to drop out so we could do the sex all day. The school board barred as much practical education as they could. Maybe they just really liked babies and wanted us to start breeding as soon as possible.

But recessionals play in a minor key; the princess pricked her finger on a spindle, was shattered by mirrors, cursed by fairies, banished from the kingdom, and hunted down by dogs. Trolls hide under bridges and that’s where she died.

Some people grow up knowing what they want to do: they color inside the lines, study at the right school, check off the boxes, and

in the end they are handed the grown-up life they’ve dreamed of. That’s mostly bullshit, for the record. Trying to figure out what you want to do, who you want to be, is messy as hell; the best anyone can hope for is to figure out the next step.

too many grown-ups tell kids to follow their dreams like that’s going to get them somewhere Auntie Laurie says follow your nightmares instead cuz when you figure out what’s eating you alive you can slay it

Walter took the mic and smiled “No,” he said. “Not competitors. We’re coconspirators, and we like it that way.” That was when I knew I was home.

a what? of teens a wince of teens mutter of teens an attitude, a grumble, a grunt a disenchantment of teenage girls a confusion of teen boys

those boys taught me to talk about consent get real about consequences respect the room enough to tell the truth cuz, lordy lord, they need it

emergency, in three acts

So many problems could be solved with just a teeny bit of knowledge about American government, the Constitution, and the function of the Supreme Court, like in Board of Education, Island Trees Union Free School District No. 26 v. Pico, 457 US 853, 872 (1982), when the Supremes memorably sang: Supreme Court precedent condemns school officials who remove books “simply because they dislike the ideas contained in those books and seek by their removal to ‘prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion.’” Censorship is the child of fear the father of ignorance and the desperate weapon of fascists everywhere.

the false innocence you render for them by censoring truth protects only you

The opposite of innocence is not sin. Dearly beloved, the opposite of innocence is strength.

so she will change that by mending the tears, repairing the patchwork of her life with new patterns, stronger knots she’ll pull herself together become the quilt assembled by loving hands threaded with intention, she’ll start weaving her truth by unbuttoning her mouth

Me to be stronger, you to stand taller, we to shout louder than they thought we could

We should teach our girls that snapping is OK, instead of waiting for someone else to break them.

ignore stupid advice

the sad, recoiling kings freak because the otherworldly magic available to the newly hatched is boundless and unbreakable which is why the powerful won’t let the young vote But the kids know how to use matches

Survival of the fittest is a recipe for loneliness, the beeches susurrate if you know how to listen, guaranteeing a nasty life, brutish and short. When one suffers, all are weakened, but when everyone thrives, we dance.

the spines of books connect page to page writer to reader teacher to student page to page past to future pain to power page to page rage to peace