Celebrate the Right to Read

The freedom to read is essential to our democracy. It is continuously under attack. Private groups and public authorities in various parts of the country are working to remove or limit access to reading materials, to censor content in schools, to label “controversial” views, to distribute lists of “objectionable” books or authors, and to purge libraries. These actions apparently rise from a view that our national tradition of free expression is no longer valid; that censorship and suppression are needed to counter threats to safety or national security, as well as to avoid the subversion of politics and the corruption of morals. We, as individuals devoted to reading and as librarians and publishers responsible for disseminating ideas, wish to assert the public interest in the preservation of the freedom to read.

Source: The Freedom to Read Statement | Advocacy, Legislation & Issues

Books Unite Us, Censorship Divides

Join us in celebrating, and recognizing, the freedom to read during this Banned Books Week September 26 – October 2, 2021.

“Reading—especially books that extend beyond our own experiences—expands our worldview. Censorship, on the other hand, divides us and creates barriers.”

Here’s some fast facts on censorship:

For more information on censorship, visit the ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom.

Credit to ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom, Banned Books Week, for images and quotation.

Banned Book Cover Re-Imagined: Bridge to Terabithia

The Nevins Library staff used their imagination and re-created some great banned book covers.  Check out this and all the other fun cover posts during Banned Books Week (Sept. 27-Oct.3, 2020)

Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson

Nevins Library Cover, 2020

Scholastic, 1985

 

Banned Books Week 2020

Banned Books Week (September 27-October 3, 2020)

 

Banned Books Week (September 27 – October 3, 2020) is an annual event celebrating the freedom to read. Typically held during the last week of September, it spotlights current and historical attempts to censor books in libraries and schools. It brings together the entire book community — librarians, booksellers, publishers, journalists, teachers, and readers of all types — in shared support of the freedom to seek and to express ideas, even those some consider unorthodox or unpopular.

The books featured during Banned Books Week have all been targeted for removal or restriction in libraries and schools. By focusing on efforts across the country to remove or restrict access to books, Banned Books Week draws national attention to the harms of censorship.

This year’s Banned Books Week theme is “Censorship is a Dead End. Find Your Freedom to Read.” Censorship limits exploration and creates barriers to access information. The path toward the freedom to read starts at the library.

Text and image are attributed to the Banned Books website,  ALA Office of Intellectual Freedom

Stay tuned for the Nevins Library’s twist on Banned Book covers…

 

#4 Most Challenged Book in 2018: The Hate U Give

Banned Books Week September 22 -28, 2019

Courtesy of the American Library Association

Top 11 Challenged Books of 2018

Banned Books Week September 22 -28, 2019

Graphic Courtesy of American Library Association

Banned Books Week: Speak Out!

Banned Books Week

Sept. 23-29, 2018

Speak Out and Be Heard!  What banned books have you read recently? 

We want to know!

Banned Books Week: Who Influenced You to Read? #2

As part of this year’s Banned Book Week Celebration, we are answering questions posed by the American Library Association.

I grew up watching my parents read whenever they could, and they always encouraged me to read as well.  Occasionally, they would buy me a new book as a treat.  But I think I amused and frustrated them when I when read it cover to cover in an afternoon!  As a favor to their own wallets, they started bringing me to the library and this changed my world.

When my parents let me loose in the library is when I really started to understand more about the privilege of having free access to books.  My young preteen self would wander among the stacks and stacks of books in my little town library in Upstate New York and feel amazed.  So many books!  And I could take them out and read them!  One fall day, I saw that the librarians had put up a display about what I would come to realize were banned books.  Banned Books?  I didn’t quite understand what that meant.  I asked the librarian what that meant, and I couldn’t believe when she told me that someone somewhere decided that for whatever reason, the books on the display shouldn’t be available to everyone!  I looked again at the books on the display and saw The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain.  And you know what I did?  I took them home and read them.  Because I could.

So thank you to my parents for encouraging me to read for fun, and to the librarians at Liverpool Public Library in New York for helping me understand my right to read.

∼ Sarah, NL Head of Readers’ Services