#deprac

This will undoubtedly sound pedestrian to those who have closely read the Lockwood and Co books for longer than I, but I've lately come to appreciate the series' anti-establishment themes. Major examples stand out- the failure of the governing powers to stand for justice, for example, and the implications of high society money cushioning DEPRAC pockets- as do minor ones, such as the unique freedom and power of performance achieved by a grassroots agency without traditional supervision by jaded adults. Even throwaway lines, such as Inspector Barnes' “I don't have the money or the resources to protect you” from the Netflix series, raise important questions about the societal structures that Lucy and her friends rely on (where ARE the money and resources of the most important defense department going, if not protection of its citizens?) and encourage the reader to ask the same of their own society.

I didn't start reading the Lockwood and Company series ready to devote myself to a just cause. This isn't a serious confession: after all, I was a freshman in high school, and you would be asking too much of a 14 year old to die in the name of justice. This is not to say that the books made me a radical in the intervening years, either. But to revisit the series as an adult, whose picket line keeps being broken, who has since lost family and friends in riots, and who can't give up on the world long enough to stop fighting for a better one, makes me glad I read Lockwood and Company in my youth. I'm glad I had access to fiction that taught me that it was OK not to trust what I was told if it didn't make sense. That I could stand against the unjust and find solidarity with my peers in doing so.

Give your kids access to every kind of book there is. Teach them about terrible horrors, of ghosts and hauntings and the people who are allowed to slip through the cracks. Let them learn about the stories they will one day be the heroes of.