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The original was posted on /r/tifu by /u/OneWildAndPrecious on 2025-12-22 01:36:11+00:00.
Took my 11yo cousin out for a tea and bookstore day to celebrate starting middle school (and soak up the “cool older cousin” admiration). We browsed books for a long time. Since she’s dyslexic, reading is tough for her, but she tries really hard in the bookstore. She decides to get an anatomy book because she wants to be a doctor one day. I’m so proud of her.
As we’re checking out, I point out a postcard that says “A well-read woman is a dangerous creature.”
“What does that mean?”
“Reading is really powerful. Education is how we change the world.”
“Why would that be dangerous?”
I’m admittedly caught off guard, and this is where TIFU. “Um, sometimes people in power don’t want the world to change so they’re scared of people who want to make it better. It’s like the people who are trying to ban books.”
“They’re trying to BAN BOOKS?!”
Her mom is an outspoken and progressive schoolteacher so I figured she might have come across the concept of book bans before, but no.
She asks good questions but a million of them and is increasingly distraught, while we’re still in the bookstore. So after clarifying that they’re not trying to ban ALL books (yet), we talk about who supports book bans and why, and what kind of books are frequently challenged or banned. She’s tearing up and not using her inside voice. I make the additional mistake of giving a few specific examples of banned books and she sets off to see if they carry them. She even asks the bookstore worker if they ban books.
Finally we establish that reading is good and this bookstore wants her to read, and we go meet her family. I quietly warn her mom that she had just learned some distressing information and sure enough, in the car home she says “Mom, did you know some people want to ban books?!”
TL;DR introduced a preteen to the concept of book bans causing a minor but very justice-minded meltdown in a bookstore.