The Power of Books Theme Analysis

A lot of people were leery of our looks. Though with Pa working the coal, his mostly pale-blue skin didn’t bother folks as much when all miners came out of the hole looking the same.

But I didn’t have coal to disguise me in black or white Kentucky. Didn’t have myself an escape until I’d gotten the precious book route. In those old dark-treed pockets, my young patrons would glimpse me riding my packhorse, toting a pannier full of books, and they’d light a smile and call out “Younder comes Book Woman…Book Woman’s here!” And I’d forget all about my peculiarity, and why I had it, and what it meant for me.

“Sorry Bluet. It got busted some when Willie had hisself a fit and threw it outside. I’m glad you’re back ’cause he lit at me good for not being able to read him his own loan. Said a colored shouldn’t be able to read better than me. Real sorry…” She latched on to my hand and laid the apology with a firm grip. I looked down at us bound together like that, tried to draw back, but Angeline squeezed tighter and whispered, “Hain’t no harm. Our hands don’t care they’re different colors. Feels nice jus’ the same, huh?”

It did. But Mr. Moffit didn’t like folks who weren’t his color. He used to demand that I stay put in the yard.

Mountainfolk looked forward to this section filled with the latest home remedies from magazine and to the health pamphlets the government sent in. It made me happy that a lot of folks, especially the elders, insisted on sharing their own too.

Someone had written instructions for using a lodestone, advised readers to wear the mineral round their necks to attract money, love, and luck. Beneath that was a note from the old midwife Emma McCain, instructing women to find the small stone from the knee of an old cock and hold it during birth to protect the babe … Underneath the amulet’s instructions, Emma had penned a special reminder written to husbands: Wear a cock stone to excite and make your wife more agreeable.

The Companion was a popular request. Mountain women were snatching up new cures and remedies from the magazine, abandoning their old ways of healing.

[…]

“Be obliged to git one. Nester Rylie’s been reading it and she told me in passing last year, she ain’t rubbed groundhog brains on her babies’ sore teeth or needed to use the hen innards on the gums of her teething ones since. And after she’d read about a good paste recipe that cured thrush, Nester said, none of her nine youn’uns ain’t ever had to drink water from a stranger’s shoe again to get the healing.”

I held the library book a moment and then said, “Miss Loretta, this is a Doctor Dolittle book, and I think you might like it some—”

Loretta held up a shushing hand and shook her head.

“Nonsense, child. And what I done told you before: I ain’t letting you read me them government books.”

“But—”

“Them’s books about rubbish and devilish deeds. Foolishness. Take it on back.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said, wishing she’d let me read her one from the library once in a while instead of her Bible.

Every time I brought one I thought she might take a liking to, she’d sour and rile on. “Them city books ain’t fitting for my kind—ain’t got a lick of sense in them pages for us hillfolk. Nothing but foolish babble an’ prattle.”

It was a life I’d only read about in my books, and my hungry hands touched the glass, trying to touch the stories I’d read.

[…]

I fumbled with the crank, then finally opened the pane and breathed in smells of oil, gas, concrete, and other scents I couldn’t name, tasted the peculiar spirit of the place, listened to the unusual buzz, the city’s open hymnal.

The soot of the city, its oils and smoke and grit, filled my nose, burning, watering my eyes.

A motorcar hurried past us and honked, startling me. Another answered back, and still another and several more. Shouts, the pound of hammers, and music and loud greetings swirled from every direction. “There’s so many voices. How do folks stand it?” I pressed my palms to my ears, swiveling my head to follow it all.

Winnie clasped her hands. “If only we could get more outreach programs up here. If only they could send a block of cheese with every book, a loaf of bread.” She tilted her head to the sky as if telling it to God.

I wished it too. Their hunger for books could teach them of a better life free of the hunger, but without food they’d never live long enough to have the strength to find it.

“Just one damn block of cheese,” Winnie scratched out in a whisper.

I thought of the cheese Doc promised. If I could bargain with him for more food, I could give it to the schoolchildren.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Smith,” I said, secretly touched they loved the books so dearly. Without the loans, his young’uns couldn’t learn because the moonshiner refused to send them to school. No man, no Kentucky law, could make a hillman do that. Most folks hadn’t even heard it was law. The land had its own decrees, held tight its hard ways of handling harder things. Folks would pack their little ones off to school only if it suited them, and not because of something written somewhere far away by city folks they’d never seen, or would ever see.

In front of the mirror, I pulled out a section of my hair, carefully wrapping the ends around a strip of fabric a couple of times, rolling it all to my scalp before tying the rags into tight knots.

When I finished I stared at myself. An old ballad spilled from my lips, and I stretched out an arm and pretended to accept a dance with a find man who’d won my pie. I twirled around the room once, twice, and again and again until I stubbed my toes on Pa’s bedpost and yelped. I winced and limped back over to the looking glass. Feeling foolish and looking it, I yanked out all the rag curls and turned my darkening face away from the mirror, untangling my damp hair, scratching at my head.

“Where’s my manners? I hope you get to feeling pert soon, ma’am. I miss seeing my bonny Picasso.” He grinned.

I stared at him blankly, and he added, “Picasso’s painting of the pretty blue lady, the Woman with a Helmet of Hair that I’d seen in one of the magazines you brought us? You remind me of her. Your fine color. My woman always said God saved that best color for His home.” He pointed a finger up to a patch of blue sky parting the gray clouds. “Guess He must’ve had Himself a little bit left over.”

Astonished, I could feel my face warm. No one, not a soul, ever said that my old color was fine. The best.