JEFF ZENTNER
I SOMETIMES HEAR PEOPLE TALKING about how young people don’t read anymore, and I think, Are you kidding me? Youth book culture has never been stronger. We’re in a golden age of youth reading. And that’s fortunate, because there is a simple truth, and if you’ve already figured this out, dear reader, and I’m sure you have, then that’s great, but here it is:
Adults will let our youth down. Our highest institutions will let our youth down. What do I mean by that? I mean that people who lack empathy in their hearts will win important contests and be entrusted with great power, and they’ll try to use that power to harm those who are weaker than them or different from them or whom our society has traditionally relegated to its margins. They’ll try to use that power to limit the ability of those people they disfavor to lead joyful and complete lives, as full participants in our society. They’ll use their positions of power to persuade frightened people to place the blame for their fears at the feet of people who have less power.
The world has always been thus, and to some extent, it will probably always be thus. I believe this stems from fundamental weaknesses in the human character, weaknesses that take a lot of work on the individual level to overcome. Work that many people aren’t willing to do because it feels better to be selfish, because our society often elevates selfishness to a virtue. There have been times in our country’s history when it’s been easier to forget this, and I believe that you may be coming of age in a time when it is harder to forget this.
I believe there are tumultuous days ahead. You’ll be entering adulthood during a time when many will be telling you that wrong is right, bad is good, and up is down.
Are you having fun so far? This is a fun essay, right? I’m more fun than a barrel of monkeys. Our world is dark and dangerous and full of evil. Good times! But I carry the flame of hope in my heart.
My hope lies in young Book People—probably you, if you’re reading this. I believe one of the fundamental qualities needed to fight the gathering darkness of which I speak is empathy. Empathy is the ability to imagine yourself in someone else’s shoes. To imagine what it would be like to be them. To feel their joy when they feel joyful. To feel their sorrow when they feel sorrowful. People of empathy do to others as they would have others do to them because they can imagine how terrible it would feel to be wronged.
And I believe that Book People are our brightest beacons of empathy. It takes great empathy to be so interested in the lives of other people that you don’t even demand that they really exist. It takes great empathy to be able to so vividly imagine the lives and inner hearts of others that you can do it simply by reading ink symbols on slices of processed wood pulp.
In the days to come, you Book People will need to exercise your powers of empathy to help identify and fight those who would harm others. One of the best ways to do that is by standing with the people who are the targets of harm. The coming days will require that your empathy put on the armor of courage. They’ll require you to love others more than you’re afraid for yourself, because the only thing that drives out darkness is when love is more powerful than fear.
In the days to come, you need to allow your empathy to become an unstoppable force inside you, something that moves you to action. Something that won’t let you stand idly by when evil happens in the world. It needs to become a force that makes you stand up with someone who’s being abused in public. That makes you pick up the phone and make calls to lawmakers when you see something you know is wrong or harmful. That makes you lift your voice in support of people whose voices are unheard.
In the days to come, you Book People will have to be the keepers of our values. You will need to become the memory and the conscience of our nation. You will need to carry inside you a bright and inextinguishable flame.
Because we can’t always count on the highest seats of power to remind us that the diversity of our nation is one of its greatest values. So it will fall to you. We can’t always count on the highest seats of power to remind us that consent matters. So it will fall to you. We can’t always count on the highest seats of power to honor facts and learning and wisdom. So it will fall to you. We can’t always count on the highest seats of power to protect those in our society who have not been empowered to protect themselves. So it will fall to you. We can’t always count on the highest seats of power to allow all Americans to live lives of joy, as full participants in society. So it will fall to you. We can’t always count on the highest seats of power to stand for truth and correctness and honesty. So it will fall to you. We can’t always count on the highest seats of power to stand against greed and corruption. So it will fall to you. We can’t always count on the highest seats of power to stand for kindness and decency, so it will fall to you.
And all of this will require you to keep filling yourself with the best words and ideas, because these will be your sword and shield in the battles to come. It’ll require you to keep filling yourself with the stories of courage and hope that make you feel strong and lift you up when you feel exhausted and hopeless. It’ll require you to share these words and ideas with those who need them. It’ll require you to create new stories filled with the best words and ideas. It’ll require you to create new stories of courage and hope.
Nothing forces people to confront the humanity of others like engaging with their stories. Art softens hearts and teaches. It raises us up. Even those in the highest seats of power can be wounded and chastened by falling on the wrong side of art. So I hope, Book People, that you’ll let the stories you love take root in you and grow and blossom and bear the fruit of other art. I hope that you’ll tell your story so powerfully that no one can deny your humanity or anyone else’s. I hope you’ll tell stories so prescient and wise that no one can deny their lessons. I hope you’ll tell stories so filled with hope that they set a fire in every heart that reads them. I hope you’ll tell stories so filled with goodness that evil withers and turns to ash before them.
I know what it’s like to have your life tip over into adulthood at a perilous and tumultuous time. On September 11, 2001, I was twenty-three years old, but still, I felt like a baby. I watched the towers of the World Trade Center burn, and I still remembered reading on the side of a packet of oatmeal that each tower had its own zip code. I must have been ten when I ate that oatmeal, but it still felt like yesterday. I got up on the morning of September 12, 2001, and went for a run, and the street was lined with American flags, and even though we were united against a common foe, I still felt the dread of knowing that I had inherited a world different from my parents’ world. I felt the fear of sailing into uncharted waters.
During those dark days, I clung to stories, because stories are there for us in dark days. I know that days are coming that’ll force me—that’ll force all of us—to cling to stories for the strength to go on.
Sometimes I imagine how storytelling came about among the earliest humans, the ones older even than history. I imagine tiny, isolated bands of people crouched around fires, a tiny spot of warmth and light in a vast and cold darkness. They’re surrounded by animals that are bigger than them. Faster. Stronger. With bigger teeth. Sharper claws. Thicker skin. Sharper eyesight. Better hearing. Keener noses. Faster reflexes.
But our ancestors had one very great advantage: a brain that could tell and understand stories. And so, one of them steps forward into the light and says, “Og want to tell story.” (I feel like Og was a very popular name among cavemen.) And they say, “What’s a story?” And Og says, “It good, it fun. Don’t get too hung up on name. Og invent that.” And then Og tells a story about them, in which they’re brave and strong, and it looks like the saber-toothed tiger is going to beat them, but at the last second, they win. Oh, and by the way, there’s some caveman romance (which I imagine involves a good deal of grunting). And the story makes them feel strong and brave, and maybe they sleep better that night, so when they go out to hunt the next day, they move a bit faster.
In difficult times, we can lean on stories as a source of strength and comfort. They can lift us and sustain us. I hope you’ll seek out the stories that make you feel strong. I hope you’ll share those stories so that other people can feel strong. I hope you’ll create stories that make you feel strong and that make other people feel strong.
I can’t pretend to fully know or understand what leads people to choose to make others feel alone and afraid. I don’t know exactly why people love to seek and use power to prevent people different from them from living the most full and complete lives they can. I think it comes from a place of deep, unexamined fear of the unknown and the different. Maybe this fear used to serve a useful purpose in the survival of our species. Maybe our friend Og the Caveman was like, “Hey, what’s that huge thing with black and orange stripes and walking on four legs instead of two? That’s pretty different from me. I don’t have orange and black fur! I better stay away from that thing!”
But if we indulge that instinct too far, we end up afraid of things and people we shouldn’t be afraid of. The difference between you and a tiger is that the tiger wants to literally eat you. The difference between you and someone who loves people in a way that’s different from you is that that person loves people in a way that’s different from you. Here’s where stories come in. They tell us the truth of other people’s lives. They shine a light on shared humanity. They make us understand that we are different, but not different. That our differences are something that makes the human tapestry richer and more colorful, and not a threat.
You’ve heard of Anne Frank. You know her because you know her story. She wrote it down so that history couldn’t deny her humanity. Who knows the name of the guy who invented the Berlin Wall? History does not honor the names of people who build walls. History does not honor the names of people who build monuments to fear and hatred. History honors the names of people who tear down walls. History honors the names of people who tell stories so powerful that walls crumble and fall before them. History honors the names of those who have the best ideas. Who walk the best paths. Who act with the most kindness and decency and empathy toward others. Who protect those who are being bullied and mistreated.
In the coming days, there’s a question I want you to ask yourselves: “If not me, then who?” If not me, then who will stand for people whose voices aren’t being heard? If not me, then who will stand for the right of all people to lead lives of joy and dignity? If not me, then who will stand for facts and reason and learning and truth? If not me, then who will stand for kindness? If not me, then who will stand for honesty? If not me, then who will stand for generosity? If not me, then who will stand for equality and justice?
I want you to demand that the people in power in our country uphold these values. I want alarm bells to go off in your head every time people in power talk about using the law to push around or punish people who are different from them—whether it’s a difference in skin color, ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion, gender identity, ability, social class, or anything else that’s being used to shove people into a corner. I want alarm bells to go off in your head because this is a failure of empathy. And without empathy, we have no society. We have a small group of powerful people and a lot of powerless people. Without empathy, we have a fundamentally and structurally unfair society in which some people enjoy incredible privilege and others enjoy none. I believe we can do better than that. I believe we are better than that.
I’m confident that your future is bright, Book People. I believe you’ll laugh and fall in love and get married and lie on grass in the summertime and stare into the stars in wonder and build lives and hold your children and grandchildren, and read stories and write stories and create beauty and friendship, and lead lives of great joy. But more than any other generation that’s come before you, you’ll have to make it bright. Not just for yourselves, but for everyone.
I can’t pretend to know everything that will happen in the days to come. But I know that stories are like fire. They give us light. They give us warmth. They burn things down so that new, green things can grow up and replace them.
Keep reading stories. Keep writing stories. Keep sharing stories. I will forever be at your side.