"Books Are Dangerous Things"--NaPoWriMo #3

This is something I wrote today, but I think I'm on to something. In order to do the one a day, I write and post, but this has potential, I think. There's a lot more I want to say, but no time this week in which to say it--work is a pain, isn't it?  But any comments would be happily accepted. I'm really curious as to thoughts. Thanks!

Books are Dangerous Things:  an essay

There’s a message we all learn: books are dangerous things.

They have been banned, burned, forbidden.

Still today people say with pride, with pride

That they haven’t read since school.

Yes. Books are dangerous. They change lives.

They changed mine.

As a girl, I read of lives I could not have imagined.

I read of possibilities so remote as to seem alien.

The library was the gateway to an enchanted world.

Not fairy stories. Just life stories. Lives I envied.

Women in control. Women educated. Women traveled.

Sophisticated, charming, kind.

Women changing the world.

Women being changed by the world.

If it weren’t for books, who would I be?

This is a question I ask regularly.

Would I be happier?

Would I be settled?

Would it have been easier?

Sometimes I think, “yes”.

Yes to the easier.

Yes to the settled.

Thanks to books, I tried things.

Thanks to books, I did things.

Thanks to books, I wept and lost and failed.

Books challenged me

But also consoled me.

Children lost parents;

Outsiders made friends;

Ugly ducklings became swans;

High school wasn’t the whole world.

Books taught me that.

They also taught me reinvention.

Or perhaps it was just perseverance.

Books taught me that there’s not just one way.

And that the world is an infinite place

full of infinite variations.

But most important:

They taught me that I am not alone.