Here in the US, there has been a massive push over the last couple years to challenge books a small, organized group of activists has deemed "dangerous for children."

One of these books in particular is condemned as "pornographic" because it describes the protagonist's experiences of sexual abuse. It's not shelved next to *The Cat in the Hat* and *The Story of Babar the Little Elephant,* but because it is Young Adult literature, libraries are accused of pushing perversion on minors. Yet the people who defend the book point out that abuse is something many youth experience personally, or know a friend is suffering, and literature like this bridges the gap of personal experience and helps people communicate about challenging topics. We are not promoting abuse, and it isn't on the shelf to appeal to prurient interests.

We don't have *Mein Kapmf* because we support Nazi ideology, either. History and today-s society are filled with cruelty and misery. We can't fix it by pretending it doesn't exist. We need to learn the mistakes of the past so we do not repeat them. We need to confront the bad ideas of the past so we do not fall for them again. And we need to have compassion for suffering today, especially when it is often hidden behind a veneer of normality.