Jonah Winter, the author of more than 45 children’s books, has teamed up with illustrator and muralist Gary Kelley for the nonfiction picture book The Burning of the Books. Centering on Nazi Germany in the 1930s, the story focuses on the era’s campaign of national book burnings, presenting to young readers the effects of fascism and censorship. Winter spoke with PW about the rise of book censorship, the challenge of translating dark moments in history for children, and how he hopes readers will recognize the need to safeguard intellectual freedom.
Your book revisits the Nazi book burnings of the 1930s. What drew you to this moment in relatively recent history?
The Nazi book burnings stand out as the single worst moment in book-burning history, in the sheer number of books burned in so many cities in one night, but in other ways, too. They were systematic, for one thing. It took a long time to plan—and the ones who planned and executed it were, for the most part, students! They were educated people for whom books should have been something to read and criticize if they desired, not destroy. But these educated people burned at least 80,000 books in one night.
The fact that students and intellectuals staged the single worst book-burning in history is one of the things that drew me to this story. Much of their motivation was racist and nationalist, yes, but it was also ideological. There were ideas and content in many of these books that the book-burners found impure, objectionable, and, to borrow from modern parlance, “problematic.” In many instances, they were opposed to the politics—or their perverted understanding of the politics—of the people whose books they burned, declaring the authors and the books to be decadent, morally repugnant, and “un-German.”
We are currently living in a time in America in which people on both sides of the political spectrum want to destroy books and silence authors. The far right tries to get books containing what to them is problematic content removed from public schools. On the far left, the educated intellectual gatekeepers cancel and disappear books they deem problematic. What the Nazi Student Union did on May 10, 1933, is entirely relevant to our current reality.
What is the purpose of writing nonfiction for children? What is the purpose of education? For me, the purpose of sharing this particular story leading up to the Holocaust is to educate children about antisemitism and people who want to destroy books and silence authors—to show them the continuum and the extreme place where that continuum ends.
Writing about fascism and censorship for children presents a challenge. How did you approach translating such a dark chapter of history for younger audiences?
For better or for worse, writing about dark chapters in history is my calling. As far as picture books go, I’m the go-to guy for dark chapters from history. I don’t really think of it as translating anything. I’ve always premised such books on the idea that children can handle the truth, and that they deserve to be paid the respect of plain speech. Now more than ever, children are surrounded on all sides by awful and in many instances horrific stuff. They don’t need to be talked down to and they don’t need adults to avoid talking about the harsh stuff in their environment. They know so much, just as we did when we were kids.
I don’t understand the aversion many authors and publishers have to what is often called “difficult” subject matter. I always want to ask, difficult for whom?
Actors are taught to let the text be their guide. As a writer, I let the story be my guide. My rules: Don’t sugarcoat. Don’t euphemize. Don’t avoid saying that which needs to be said, to tell the story effectively and truthfully. Don’t pull any punches.
It’s no secret that debates over banned books have resurfaced in schools and libraries over the last decade. How do you see this book fitting into those conversations?
Well, hopefully not like a skunk at a lawn party! But in all seriousness, I’d hope that this book would be seen as addressing the worst example of what can happen when you start banning or canceling books and authors. I hope children and educators see what’s happening in our current world as being on a continuum with the Nazi book-burnings, and that this clarity will generate some lively discussion.
How do you hope young readers will begin to think about the fragility of free expression?
What are you doing when you destroy a book? You are trying to destroy ideas, imagination, words—and showing the world what you would like to do to the author. I hope that my book will help children see—if they don’t already—that banning, canceling or destroying a book is a profound act of violence, not just against the author and the book, but against the very notion of why books are written: as an expression of one person’s perspective, heart, mind, and imagination. Even books that some or many may deem “evil” should be allowed to exist. Criticize the book, and even be merciless in that criticism, but don’t destroy the book.
I want children to feel protective of books and of the inherent freedom of expression that goes into writing and publishing. And even if they don’t like a specific book, I want them to respect their fellow children’s right to read and even love that book. I want them to experience the same horror that I and so many others feel when thinking about the Nazi book-burnings. I want them to think about who burned these books: Nazis, fascists, people with no respect for the rights of other people to read books that they the book-burners found objectionable for racist or for ideological reasons. These were people who, ultimately, had no respect for the lives of the millions they murdered.
If you shut down another person’s freedom of expression, you are essentially shutting down their humanity, and you are making it more likely that everybody’s freedom of expression is at risk, as well as their humanity.
The Burning of the Books by Jonah Winter, illus. by Gary Kelley. Creative Editions, $18.99 Mar. 10 ISBN 978-1-56846-411-4
