Cate Carrejo

Do you remember how small your world was as a child? You went a handful of places — home, school, church, grandparents’ houses, a few friends’ houses after school.

Your rocket ship, your time machine, your imagination come to life were all at one place — the library. It was a physical space that represented all the possibilities of your future, all the information you might wield one day to navigate through the fast-approaching adult world.

I’ve had the privilege of watching my 12-year-old daughter embrace the magic of books. After a challenging process of learning to read due to autism, dyslexia, and ADHD, the library and its staff have become a source of safety and joy for her. One of her teachers has even nicknamed her Matilda because she always has at least one book in hand.

Books are her window into understanding the often overwhelming world around her. In a world filled with the harsh realities of gun violence and other challenging subjects, books have provided her with the knowledge and coping mechanisms she needs to navigate these complexities. This is a testament to the power of literature and how it can foster understanding and resilience in young minds.

However, we now face a situation where a select few individuals, some of whom don’t even reside in Tyler, attempt to impose their own beliefs on our community by banning books from our library — all supposedly for the sake of “protecting our children.” They seem to lack the maturity to accept the hardest but most fundamental truth about parenting: we cannot choose who our children will become.

The debate over banning books is divisive, but at its core it’s about protecting our fundamental right to choose the kind of person we will be. Banning books is a slippery slope toward government censorship and a direct attack on our country’s commitment to freedom of expression. We must stand together and ensure that our community’s values of diversity, inclusivity and intellectual freedom remain intact.

I implore our community leaders and fellow citizens to deny any efforts to ban books. Let’s keep the library a place where individuals and parents have the right to choose what they read and believe, respecting the diversity of thought that enriches our community. Our community’s unity and commitment to these ideals are far stronger than the forces of censorship and division.