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Book banning is an attack on the soul of our community, especially when the books targeted are predominantly by or about people of color and the LGBTQIA+ community. And kids are the ones who lose out the most. No child should be deprived of access to a book that could broaden their world or help them feel better about themselves. But as we try to center our kids, could some of the habits of this industry also be inadvertently biased and blocking kids from having a true freedom to read?

I don’t know about you these days, but if you ask me how I am (or what I need), the answer will shift wildly from one hour to the next. How do we keep putting one foot in front of the other when it feels like the world around us—particularly the parts we value like schools and libraries and books—are under attack? How am I? Scared. Hopeful. Cynical. Wary. Really enjoying this mug of tea. Excited that I just cleaned my freezer for the first time in 15 years. Disappointed that the cat peed in the laundry basket again. And that’s just a Tuesday.

As a reader, when I’m deciding what kind of book to read next, it’s like a deep and personal litmus test about what I need in that moment. Two weeks ago, when someone booktalked The Husbands by Holly Gramazio to me, it was love at first sight. Yes!I need a book about a woman whose attic keeps producing an ever-changing conveyor belt of husbands. That’s a book that promises to sweep me away to a different and hilarious place. And it did, and then I gave it to my husband and got to love it all over again as he felt compelled to read lines aloud. That was a book that met me where I was and delivered the laughter and joy I was missing.

Two months ago when I was sitting all night in the ER beside my 12-year-old daughter who was suicidal (and thankfully able to sleep), I finished the book I’d been reading, but it was only 1 a.m. and there was no way I’d be able to sleep in my plastic chair. Then, like magic, my library hold came through for Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver, a book I’d gotten two pages into a year ago and bailed on because it felt too stressful. But this time, surrounded by the beeps of the ER, letting myself sink into a well-told story about someone whose problems dwarfed my own, it felt like a warm hospital blanket being wrapped around me in a hug.

I write books about hard topics—poverty in The Benefits of Being an Octopus, political divides and bullying in Flight of the Puffin, and questions about the patriarchy and religion in Opinions and Opossums—because those are the stories that speak to me as a writer. But kids need all kinds of books. Because life is pretty hard for a lot of kids right now, and yes, they need to see themselves as a hero on the page—but they also need to be able to be transported somewhere else. Maybe that’s to somewhere funny or somewhere magical. Maybe it’s to the past or to a dystopian future that makes our current world look like a utopian society.

As an industry, our most prestigious awards honor books that are “distinguished,” which makes sense. But it’s important that the adults’ search for the highest levels of literature doesn’t create a subconscious bias that leads us to be silently disapproving of the kids who keep wanting to read Dog Man.

Yes, books can teach kids empathy and show those going through difficult times that they are not alone, but each individual kid has more needs than just that. And the thing is, we know how powerful books can be in meeting that wide range of needs.

There’s the kid dealing with anxiety who listens to Diary of a Wimpy Kid on repeat to help them fall asleep every night.

There’s the girl who keeps rereading Drama by Raina Telgemeier because those characters feel like her friends. There’s the boy with ADHD who isn’t always able to connect with his peers, but who listens rapt every night as his mom reads him The Lost Year by Katherine Marsh, and who then spends his days going down Internet rabbit holes to learn more about the history.

There’s the girl who only wants to read graphic novels and wants to find a sad one this time because she’s feeling a little sad, too.

There’s the kid who likes mysteries because they know there’s always going to be an answer at the end.

There’s the kid who won’t pick up a book that’s too long because they don’t want to feel discouraged and there’s enough of that already.

My newest book, Into the Rapids, centers difficult topics like my other books. It’s about the way trauma shapes people, a flash flood, and a kid’s anxiety about death. It’s a survival story, but it’s also about how there’s more to life than just surviving. And how if we actually want to thrive, we need to open ourselves up to the whole range of what life offers. With the wide range of readers out there at the front of my mind, I wanted it to be short enough to appeal to those who don’t think of themselves as readers yet. I wanted the story to suck them in with the force of rapids and transport them to an adventure that provides both escape and comfort along the way.

I hope it will be the kind of book that meets a kid where they are. But it won’t be the right book for every kid. That’s why we need all kinds of books.

As book banners try to limit access to books, we must not only push back, but also use it as a reminder to check ourselves about how we might be limiting kids with our own good intentions.

Because when there is a wide diversity of books, we can help kids recognize what we all already know: that books can be a lifeline through whatever we’re going through. A lifeline that can come in so many different forms.

Ann Braden is a middle grade author and former teacher. Her most recent novel is Into the Rapids.