Suggested Reading

There was literally no nook or cranny of my life that hadn’t been guided by a book, and, for the most part, it had been an uninterrupted journey.

Books are a light. A light that melts ignorance and hate.

The problem is we bring ourselves to the pages.Our whole selves. Every single darkness. Every single light.Every single passion.Every single hurt. We read with all the layers that make us who we are acting as filters. We read with all that our eyes have seen and all that our hearts have felt since birth.

The problem is, we bring ourselves to the pages. Our whole selves. Every single darkness. Every single light. Every single passion. Every single hurt. We read with all the layers that make us who we are acting as filters. We read with all that our eyes have seen and all our hearts have felt since birth. With that much density making up humanity, it can't be up to us to make sure people don't misunderstand a book. And it can't be up to books to make sure people don't kill themselves or hate someone, or even love someone. Or even decide to be president. What we do, before and after we read, is our choice. And that choice is freedom.

Each book built me. Each page assembled me piece by piece.

What we do, before and after we read, is our choice. And that choice is freedom.

Where some people defined their years by grade,I defined mine by the book that changed me the most that year.

You stand up because you believe, not because you want to win. I don't want you add more hate to this world. We have enough.

I'm not, like, a book guy, but isn't the point of all this book stuff like what Ms. Croft was teaching us -- that unrestricted access to books allows us to be challenged and changed? To learn new things and to critically think about those things and not be afraid of them? To be better than we were before we read them?

He supplied words, but demanded tears and being torn apart as payment

It is easy for most of us to look back in time and praise those who fought for the right of others. The protests of history are much easier to accept than protests of the present.

It's frustrating that my bad days are deep-seated issues with my character and every adult's bad days are just bad days.

Someone remind me to hug first and ask questions later.

It was funny how little time you had to read when you were busy helping other people read.

Books are a light. A light that melts ignorance an hate.

It's easy for most to look back in time and praise those who fought for the rights of others. The protests of history are much easier to accept than protests of the present. History doesn't require anything from us. It doesn't even require us to know it. The present? It requires our all.

Friends who hurt deeply but connected in the same way I had.

Why is it that knowing who you are just makes things harder sometimes?

As soon as I saw the bookshelves through the store windows, I felt lighter. Just thinking about the smell inside. Paper, compressed nature, and hands making words, a must of knowing and magic. Periods. Commas. Digressions. Analogies. The beauty of everyday thought turned poetry. It was all there, and I was hit with a little sliver of peace in the chaos of my brain.

Because of Speak,I went on a binge of reading books known for making people cry.

And the queso? The only thing stopping me from putting that junk in a thermos and carrying it around with me was . . . Actually, that was a good idea.

thought about the books in my locker. I also thought about how I’d already snuck books for most of my life. I was uniquely qualified to be a sneaky book peddler.

The communal aspect of books. They became so close to you, so ingrained in your blood, that it was like they became unpublished. The bar code, along with the memory of buying it...disappeared. And somewhere between the covers you'd start to think you were the only one who'd ever set eyes on the words, that there couldn't possibly have been another person that book spoke to as much as you.

I never got how the adults at Lupton Academy could tell me, "You're a responsible adult now; you need to act like it. Come in a uniform. Engage in classes." And then, at the same time, say "Actually, you're too young to deal with books about rape, kids being bullied because they're gay, the intricacies of the human condition, and racism." The ridiculous flip-flopping between "you're just a kid" and "you're a grown up now" depending on the whims of adults was exhausting and infuriating.

When I'd started the Unlib, I'd been afraid the books couldn't do the things I thought they could. But there I stood, handing a banned book to the same person who made me question them in the first place, believing in them even more than I had before. In those seconds it felt like all the words and magic in the universe converged right where I stood, telling me the told and untold stories of bravery, strength, hope, and hurt. Whispering in my ears that there were still so many books, choices, and changes that hadn't yet dared to disturb the universe.

If you don't realize the importance and responsibility of the freedoms we've been given, then you won't realize what freedom actually is.

Sometimes the game has to be played by someone else's rules. And sometimes those rules don't benefit the players. The thing is, if you don't play the game at all, you can't help others win.

Books had always been such a positive part of my life, an only-ever-good thing I was praised for being into. So when someone else said, "No, these aren't good for you; I got angry. Now that anger had been replaced by worry and confusion, I wondered for the first time what reason someone could've had to say they weren't good for me. I'd felt off about the Unlib from the day it started because I'd never questioned books before. Id always thought that if it was book-shaped, it was good. My mom and dad had affirmed as much. In the same way, I'd never questioned what books actually did to me. For me. With me. My whole life, I’d only seen the world open its arms to books. But suddenly I had Mr. Walsh saying that they weren't good for me to read? Id had no idea someone could look at a book and think it would make them, or anyone else that read it, worse off. I'd had no idea someone wouldn't want someone else to read something. And it had bothered me. Why? Why? What was I missing? And now I finally saw it.