I'm Jonathan K. Parton. Welcome to K-Part. If you don't already know Nikki Giovanni,

I'm not sure you're ready for this powerhouse. A famed author and poet and a lion of African-American

thought and activism, Giovanni has been on the scene for more than five decades. Her latest book

is a tribute to libraries and the power of books entitled A Library. In this encore presentation

of a conversation first recorded for Washington Post Live on October 5th, Giovanni extolled the

freedom books give our lives, especially that of children. And when it comes to the efforts to

ban books around the country, Giovanni couldn't be more clear. It's hard to fight what's going on

right now because it's stupid. It's stupid for somebody to say, well, I don't want my child to read

that book. You don't ban a book because you're afraid what your child is going to think. You know,

get over that one. It is wonderful to see you. Why did you decide to write this book? Why is now

the time for you to pay homage to libraries? Library for any author, libraries are the most important

part of our profession, libraries and then critics. And of course, now libraries are under

pressure from people who don't read to then books to provide to to to keep youngsters from getting

certain books. And I wanted to celebrate libraries, libraries and librarians are some of the

most important people that we know. And we in the black community are extremely proud to have

Dr. Carla Hayden as the black librarian, the head of Library of Congress. I'm very pleased with that.

And to tell you the truth, Jonathan, I don't remember a lot. Friends say that either I don't care

or I just don't pay attention. But I do remember my first librarian and I must have been 12 or 13

years old. And her name was Mrs. Long. And I wanted to just write something about how wonderful Mrs. Long

was. And as I got older, I grew up in segregation. But as I got older, I realized what she must have

gone through to to get books that she thought I might be interested in and that I was interested in.

And so I wrote actually there are three points in this book, a library, it's just one. But there are

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