“Who Told You That You Could Read That?”

There are books; there are banned books; and there are you-aren’t-old-enough-yet books.

I liked to read at a young age. If you are reading this on Medium, probably you did too (it’s one of those viral things that mess up your mind for the rest of your life). I went from Dick and Jane picture books in first grade to more imaginative illustrated books in second grade (a favorite, and one that introduced me to science fiction, was The Spaceship Under The Apple Tree series). And then in third grade, while wandering through the local public library (a popular place to visit for my mother, my sister, and me), I found an entire shelf section in the Young People’s Room with the title “SCIENCE FICTION” across the top.

These books weren’t illustrated. Well, okay, there were illustrations, sure, but like maybe three or four for the whole book. But they had interesting covers and (very importantly) nobody said I was too young to read them. The librarians were more than happy to let me use my “children’s library card” to borrow books, so long as my mother was there.

I picked out Red Planet by Robert A. Heinlein. I have no idea why. Pretty cover? My mother made no objection, with the understanding that I would let her know if it was too hard for me.

I took it home and read it. Objectively speaking, it was too hard for me. There was a classical Latin phrase in the first chapter. The adult characters referenced things in oblique ways that I would not catch for years.¹ The subject matter covered themes like personal liberty, societal liberty, gun rights, revolution, and parents being murdered without warning. All topics pretty much outside my experience.

At that time.

But I got the gist of it. I understood the adventure and conflict and people standing up for what they believed in and moral stances and how aliens won’t think like humans and shouldn’t be expected to. (To be fair, The Spaceship Under The Apple Tree helped a lot with that last part.)

I was hooked.

I spent the next few years going through the science fiction shelves in that room. I ran out of books before I was old enough to check out books from the adult shelves, but I discovered that allowances could be saved up to purchase paperbacks from book stores, and nobody asked to see the color of my library card if my money was the right shade.

Years later, I went back to that library and looked into that room that got me started. The Young People’s room was now the “Junior High” room and there were age limits on who could check out books. I forget the earliest age, but it was well after third grade.

Horses. Barn doors. Sorry, library administrators, you were too late.

¹I have that book — I have all Heinlein’s books — in hardcover, and it’s one of my “comfort books” that I pull off the shelf and open at random when I’m having trouble sleeping or just need familiar words. I still have occasional “seriously! they let him put that in a YA book?” moments reading through it.