Day’s YA: Letter to Librarians From S. Jae-Jones

GUARDIANS OF DAWN: ZHARA by S. Jae-Jones
9781250191427
8/1/2023
Wednesday Books
Ages 12-18

Dear Librarian:

I was six years old when I first won the ice cream social prize for having read the most books for the summer reading challenge. The minimum number had been ten; I read fifty.

Almost all of them had come from the library.

For as long as I could remember, I was a voracious reader. I read in the bathroom, I read at the dinner table, I read in the car, I read while standing with my grandmother in the grocery line, and I read faster than my parents could supply me books. I was an imaginative only child with undiagnosed ADHD and a low tolerance for tedium, and the only way my grandmother and primary caretaker could get a moment’s peace was to shove several books in my hands.

My grandmother, my Halmeoni, did not speak English and knew only a handful of words that she doled out as needed. Library was one of the first I taught her. Doseogwan. The summer I won the reading challenge, Halmeoni dutifully escorted me to and from our local branch, riding the bus and carrying my books every week. She often made of use of the materials there as well—photocopying pages from Korean-English workbooks and dictionaries, trying her best to wrangle her tongue into strange and foreign sounds. Library. La-i-beu-rae-ri.

The memory of my grandmother sitting and struggling to connect meaning to shapes informed some of the magic system in GUARDIANS OF DAWN: ZHARA. There is power in words—literally—and the secret language of magicians is contained in a book banned by the world’s oppressive regime. Magic is power, but knowledge is also power, and the one way to control power is to control access to books.

I hadn’t intended to write something so timely.

The current book banning fervor sweeping the United States is not about protecting children; it’s about controlling the narrative. Removing funding from libraries does not only remove books from the hands of those who would need them, but also removes a place where people like my grandmother could go to learn English. As fewer and fewer places to find books exist, I wonder if another six-year-old with a summer reading challenge will even find fifty titles to read.

Not all battles are fought with violence, and librarians are some of the staunchest warriors in the world.

For fighting book bans, for giving my grandmother a place to study, and for signing my summer reading slip—proving I had, in fact, read all fifty books—I will always be grateful. I hope GUARDIANS OF DAWN: ZHARA will find its way onto library shelves, and that someday, another child will add it to their summer reading challenge.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

S. Jae-Jones

---

YA Resources:
2023 Books for Teens
Day’s YA Archives
2023 Adult Books for Teens