Windows and Mirrors

It seems like you can't open any news site (or even social media one) without coming across a new article about how more books are being banned from school libraries. As someone who works for an edtech company focused on building kids reading comprehension skills, I found myself initially watching this news closely. It feels important to know what types of stories that parents, teachers, school districts and the whole world (at least it feels like it somedays), are panicking over.

However, the more I would read, the more frustrated I would become. Last year, I was introduced to the concept of looking at stories as being windows and mirrors. That each story is either a window into someone else's world, or a mirror that reflects back something about the reader.

This concept has been a driving force as at Dreamscape we have been evaluating our current passage library and working to hire new writers to expand it further. We want every player of Dreamscape to encounter stories that they can see themselves within—or in other words, multiple mirrors.

These mirror don't have to be perfect, and they may only reflect back one area of how they see themselves. In story A they may read about a character with a similar home life, and in story B a character who has the same disability as them. And then over in story C they'll read about a character who looks like them.  This is why it's important that there are multiple of them.

A couple of weeks back, I stumbled across this twitter thread that illustrates why having mirrors is so important.

After reading and following articles about the banning for a while, I realized it was important to step back. It becomes really easy to get disillusioned about the world and to also feel yourself starting to self-censor in response. The "we can't do that, someone might complain." In fact, a more recent article found that this is exactly what is happening. Libraries across the country are removing books in aniticipation. All that does, is make it more likley that kids on the margins are going to continue to find themselves surrounded by a bunch of windows, but no mirrors.

However, on a more positive note, a coworker of mine posted recently about a Facebook group that she's part of, where many of these discussions have been happening. One user posted about a book their child had brought home that contained two dads and how it was "propaganda." However, instead of replying in support of the poster (which seems to feel most typical these days), most of the replies instead focused on how most kids already know that same-sex parents exists and that just because there are two dads, doesn't even mean that's the case – it could also be representing a dad and step dad. Hope is not lost.

In the meantime, if you're trying to find a book to read, try consulting this list of 50 Books Parents Want Banned. Odds are, you'll find a book that mirrors some part of your life.

And remember the wise words of Art Spiegelman.