It's a question politicians are asking, and their answer is clear with every library closure and pink slip. Last week, the LA Unified School District was giving librarians pink slips — this is after a decision to cut the library acquisitions budget to 0% this year. The frightening thing is LAUSD is not alone. Libraries are being closed around the country. If libraries are lucky enough to remain open, acquisition budgets are slashed, and the double doors are only open long enough to kick a few librarians out. Librarians all over the country are finding themselves homeless, in both the literal and metaphoric sense. Because any librarian can tell you: A librarian without a library truly has no home.

Which leads me to the question: Do libraries really matter?

YES!! As a teacher, not a writer, let me tell you why.

1) ACCESS

Libraries provide every child (and person) with an equal playing field. There are children & teens, all over this country, who live in homes without a single book. Their families may be too poor to buy them, their parents are often illiterate or foreign speakers, or they may not value books at all. The only way kids from those environments can access books is through their school or public library. Denying them that access is  equivalent to racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic segregation. As a country, we complain about the level of illiteracy, unemployment, and crime — yet we are denying people the one thing that will allow them to rise above these conditions — education. To pursue or further one's own education, you need books.

2) OPPORTUNITY

Without access and education, there is no opportunity in the most basic sense. Books allow you to expand your understanding of the world, and with that understanding comes choice and opportunity. That's the way a kid who grows up with nothing becomes a doctor, an astronaut, a member of Congress, maybe even a writer. When I taught in the inner city in DC, most of my students had never been to a bookstore. Libraries were the only place they could find the books that showed them a bigger world than the one they experienced every day. A world filled with possibilities beyond their imagination. In many ways, the books they read gave them the tools to imagine. When we take away the books, we take away take away opportunity.

3) IDENTITY

The person you are — your identity — is shaped by thousands of variables. I believe one of those variables is books. Even with the most impressive libraries, are nothing without librarians. Librarians are the ones who find the right book for every kid. You know, the book about game design for the gamer. Graphic novels and sketchbooks of famous artists, for the kid who loves to draw. Ray Bradbury for the sci-fi lover and Stephen King for the kid who loves horror movies. The possibilities are endless. And no one can navigate the complicated labyrinth of shelves like a librarian. They give us the books.

The right book, at the right time, can save your life — or change it.

Maybe the world, one book at a time.

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