The topic of Jonah Winter and Gary Kelley’s picture book, The Burning of the Books, never loses its relevance. Today, the urgency of depicting the history of censorship in its most brutal form seems obvious. With a compelling narrative and equally powerful images, Winter and Kelley tell young readers the truth about the past and its implications for the present and future.
In his informative author’s note, Winter summarizes the destruction of books in Nazi Germany that fulfilled the ominous prediction of Jewish poet Heinrich Heine: “Where they burn books, they will ultimately burn people.” Far from a metaphor, the connection between burning books and extinguishing human life was proven by Hitler’s genocide of Europe’s Jews. Yet, as the book makes clear, Germany was once a cradle of literacy, and Gutenberg’s first printed book was a Bible. The author’s tone succeeds in combining a clear presentation of facts with an implicit acknowledgement of their horror. This is not a fictional dystopian scenario, but a real one, as a country filled with libraries and a robust freedom of expression grotesquely rejected the values these had represented.
Kelley’s angular figures recall German expressionist painting. Among them is Hitler himself, signaling that the past is over. Winter details how a programmatic hatred of Jews, along with opposition to any “books that might cause people to think,” would determine which ones would be suppressed. A two-page spread shows swastika-bearing soldiers carting armloads of books to
“a raging bonfire.” But the German military did not implement this policy alone. Librarians and students eagerly participated in eliminating dangerous volumes from everywhere they were housed. The progression of both narrative and images shows how seemingly ordinary people enthused by evil ideas could result in the events of May 10, 1933, in Berlin. The book-burning is
both carefully planned and chaotic, characterized by blind loyalty and rage. A parade, a chorus of patriotic voices, and pledges of allegiance to the Nazi regime lead to the fulfillment of Heine’s warning.
The book’s design is consistent with its message. A cat sitting on a table in a shadowy room faces nearly empty bookshelves. An unoccupied stepladder reminds readers that, earlier, someone intent on removing the books was completely successful in his task. The facing page is starkly white, with two blocks of text enclosed in gray. Winter expands on the violence perpetrated in Berlin, revealing that thirty-three other cities enacted similar attacks, resulting in the destruction of at least 80,000 printed works. After these events, many Jewish authors and others left to find refuge in the United States, embracing the traditions of free speech that had long been an ideal to Americans. The book concludes with the irrefutable reminder that, even in countries with a history of democracy, these rights can be wrested away. The purpose of this haunting story is not to instill fear, but rather to recount the truth, and inspire conviction to protect the books that keep us free.
Emily Schneider writes about literature, feminism, and culture for Tablet, The Forward, The Horn Book, and other publications, and writes about children’s books on her blog. She has a Ph.D. in Romance Languages and Literatures.
