Can books lead to world peace, or simply peace in our country? Can they put an end to school shootings, Pittsburgh-style atrocities, 9/11s, and overseas genocide? Well, they can’t put a total end to war or domestic violence. The world will always have troublemakers, agitators, and those who are, to put it nicely, off balance. But I bet the ordinary individuals who are swayed to follow the agitators could also be swayed in the opposite direction by books. Not just books describing and railing against the atrocities of war or books preaching respect for others—those, too—but also books about people of different backgrounds, different ethnicities, and different religions. I bet the SOB who killed those Jewish people in the Pittsburgh synagogue had never read the Diary of Anne Frank.
I “prescribe” a school reading program in which the students are exposed to age-appropriate books about people from varying backgrounds: people of color, Native Americans, foreigners, rich and poor…all varieties. And students should also be required to read about people of differing religions: Protestant, Jewish, Catholic, and Muslim at minimum, and maybe Hindu and Buddhist, too. For those students old enough, Anne Frank should definitely be on their reading list.
It’s not that I’m naïve enough to believe that just by requiring diverse reading at a young age we can put a total end to all hostility. But if we can just dial it down by half, or maybe three-quarters, that would be a wonderful start!