A Thousand Revolutions

Stories are acts of rebellion. They always have been. We loved Katniss for her rage against a tyrannical government, we rooted for Princess Leia as she led the rebellion against the empire, we rooted for Zélie Adebola as she reclaimed her heritage and fought to get her magic back from oppressive forces. We even rooted for governments to fear their people as we watched V topple the regime. Lauren Olamina created, loved, survived with empathy and power. So many of our stories parallel our fears, our needs, and the desperation that comes when defiance is the only choice. These stories remind us that fighting back can be as simple as picking a different faction, or speaking out when someone is harming another person. They remind us that our most marginalized voices are often at the forefront of the movements that bring freedom to the people.

That doesn’t stop on the page. The stories we choose to read, and the voices we uplift, are acts of rebellion too.

Every time you pick up a book written by a Black author, an Indigenous author, an author of color who’s been told their stories are “too political” or “don’t matter,” you are helping keep a voice alive. We must see, hear, and bear witness to the voices of marginalized groups. We must give our platforms to people who are inherently silenced by the systemic power. And we must keep access to reading these books. To do that, we have to protect the places that give us access to their voices.

Libraries are temples. Libby, Hoopla, your local branch, they’re all portals into power. Physical books are artifacts of freedom. They cannot be erased by algorithms. They cannot be silenced in an update. They cannot disappear because someone decided you didn’t need to see them on your feed today. The point of keeping them alive is to open windows to a culture or a perspective we haven’t met before.

Books teach us to see. They teach empathy. They show us millions of lives we’ll never live, force us to experience pain we’ll never feel, and show us struggles we may never face in our own lives. When we stop reading widely, we stop seeing other people as human. When the world starts banning books, silencing authors, and rewriting history to fit a narrative, we can no longer sit in silence and watch our fellow authors be banned from the conversation.

Reading is how we fight back. It is resistance. It is power. It is the spark that lights the flame.

So read banned books. Read angry books. Read indie books. Read the furious, the desperate, the dissenting books. Read the books that shout about identity. The books that scream about the experiences of marginalized authors, characters, and readers. Read the messy, beautiful, revolutionary books.

If you can buy them, buy them. If you can’t, borrow them. But read them. Talk about them. Share them. Because every page you read of a book someone wants to ban is a screaming act of defiance against a system that wants to silence dissenting voices. And right now? We need all the defiance we can get.