It has been a hard year. A loud year. A year marked by cruelty dressed up as policy and indifference framed as realism. Which is precisely why, this Christmas, I am urging something quiet, intentional, and sustaining: give a book.
A book is not just a gift. It is an act of faith. It says to the recipient: I believe you can think. I believe you can sit with complexity. I believe your inner life matters. In a culture of scroll, speed, and disposability, a book resists the churn. It asks us to slow down, to pay attention, to stay with an idea longer than a headline or a hot take.
Books do something else too. They humanize. They complicate. They insist on context. And in a time when public policy too often reduces people—especially poor people—to abstractions, books remind us that behind every statistic is a story, a family, a history, a life.
Books that changed the world
If this sounds lofty, remember: books have always changed the world. Not overnight, and not alone—but decisively.
Uncle Tom’s Cabin helped galvanize anti-slavery sentiment. The Communist Manifesto reshaped labor movements and global politics. The Feminine Mystique helped ignite second-wave feminism. The Fire Next Time forced America to confront the moral urgency of race. Silent Spring transformed environmental policy. The Souls of Black Folk gave language to double consciousness and the unfinished work of democracy.
Books don’t just reflect moments; they help create them. They travel quietly, hand to hand, across kitchens and classrooms, through prisons and parishes, shaping how people understand what is possible and what is intolerable. When you give a book, you are not just giving pages bound together—you are placing an idea into circulation.
Policy books: gifts that explain how we got here
That’s why policy books matter, especially now. They give readers tools rather than slogans. They connect past decisions to present outcomes—housing to wealth, wages to dignity, race to opportunity. They help us see that inequality is not an accident or a natural condition; it is designed.
A good policy book does not tell readers what to think. It shows them how systems work. It offers context in an age allergic to it. Giving a policy book is a way of saying: I trust your intelligence. I respect your curiosity. I think you deserve the full story.
In a moment when the war on the poor is waged through fines, fees, benefit cliffs, and bureaucratic cruelty, policy books help readers see punishment masquerading as governance. They invite us to imagine different choices—and better ones.
Children’s books: where imagination begins
For children, books are even more powerful. They are mirrors and windows—ways of seeing themselves and seeing others. A child who sees themselves reflected in a book learns, early, that they belong in the world of ideas. A child who encounters difference through story learns empathy before fear.
Children’s books that center Black joy, Black curiosity, Black history, and Black imagination are especially important. Too often, Black children are introduced early to surveillance, discipline, and diminished expectations. Books can counter that. They can introduce wonder first. Possibility first. Joy first.
A children’s book is a small object with a long reach. It shapes vocabulary, self-concept, and moral imagination. Long after the toy breaks or the battery dies, the story remains.
Books as quiet resistance
There is another reason books matter right now: they resist cruelty. In a moment when suffering is normalized and poverty is treated as a personal failure rather than a policy choice, books insist on humanity. They insist that people are more than categories, more than costs, more than “undeserving.”
Books also create shared language. A book passed from one person to another becomes a bridge—a reference point, a conversation starter, a way of talking across difference without shouting. That, too, is no small thing.
So yes, give a book for Christmas. Give one to a child. Give one to an elder. Give one to someone who disagrees with you. Give one to someone who is struggling. Give one to yourself.
In a season defined by excess, a book is a gift of intention. In a culture of forgetting, it is an act of memory. In a time of cruelty, it is a small but meaningful kindness.
Books have changed the world before. They can still change it again.
Give a book for Christmas.
