The most miraculous invention in the history of the world is not something with a plug or gas tank. It is not a medicine or surgical technique. It doesn’t fly you to the moon or explore the inner workings of the Earth.

But without it, none of that would have happened.

This absolutely revolutionary technology that facilitated everything from law and government to art and education to science and transportation is the written word.

The first successful organ transplant was in 1954 when one person’s kidney was stitched into another person’s body. But since the first paintings drawn on cave walls, the first hieroglyphs, the first alphabets, people have successfully transplanted information and ideas.

I crave words like an addict. I am seldom more than an arm’s length from a book. I read the ones I adore over and over like love letters. I talk back to the ones that make me mad. I argue and agree with them in equal measure just like I do family and friends, challenged to reconsider my own positions as I go.

And so it is utterly mystifying to me why anyone would want to ban a book.

The concept is nothing new. People have long been afraid of things they couldn’t control. What is more uncontrollable than the falling dominoes of thought that tumble with the first push of a new idea? Ray Bradbury explored it in his acclaimed novel “Fahrenheit 451,” which has, ironically, faced repeated censorship attempts over the years.

Bans and attempted bans at schools have sprung up over and over, periodically coming back into fashion like a bad hairstyle. We are in the midst of the latest right now as school boards all over the country are faced with — or are themselves initiating — demands to pull a certain book out of classes or allow parents to sanitize the library shelves. The American Library Association reported more than 330 challenges to books from September to November 2021.

It is interesting that this follows two years of demands to let parents make choices about their students. Now taking choices away is the chant.

Acclaimed scientist Carl Sagan wrote about the amazing ability of books to speak across time and space and bring people together through the words they whisper.

“A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic,” he said.

That is why a book ban chills my soul. They frequently go hand in hand with book burning. A Tennessee pastor held one in February, inviting people to light up books with occult themes — like “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.”

Demonizing words invites more evil than it exorcises. It promotes the kind of intolerant culture of distrustful times in our past, times when we hauled people before congressional panels or blacklisted them from getting jobs. Or worse, when people were not just marginalized but criminalized for the religious books they read.

In a school, reading is the key that opens every subject. It unlocks the door to critical thought. No one has learned more by reading less.

If we want to continue to grow and explore and develop more technologies and bigger innovations, and make grander dreams become reality, we have to make schools a safe place to read. Even — especially — ideas that challenge.

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