Celebrating the Freedom to Read
Share
Tweet
Banned Books Week 2020 is taking place from September 27 – October 3, and we're right in the middle of it! Various classrooms and libraries around Blaine County are participating in this annual event which celebrates the freedom to read and brings awareness to the dangers in censorship. The theme of this year's event is "Censorship Is a Dead End. Find Your Freedom to Read!"
Launched in 1982 in response to a sudden surge in the number of challenges to books in schools, bookstores, and libraries, Banned Books Week (BBW) highlights the value of free and open access to information. The week-long celebration 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 that some consider unorthodox or unpopular.
By focusing on efforts around the country to remove or restrict access to books, BBW draws national attention to the harms of censorship. The American Library Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF) compiles lists of challenged books as reported in the media and submitted by librarians and teachers across the United States.
Last year, the Blaine County Library's book club, Free People Reading Freely, celebrated BBW by reading the Top 10 Challenged Books of 2018. About BBW, Librarian Valerie Frank stated, "It's my favorite week of the year! This year, we will have a book display, but beyond that I don't think we will have any special activity. On our shelves, we have all but one of the 2019 Banned Books, and I recently ordered that."
The missing title is Beyond Magenta: Transgender Teens Speak Out by Susan Kuklin. According to data collected by the OIF, Kuklin's book has been challenged in various schools and communities because of LGBTQIA+ content, for "its effect on any young people who would read it," and for concerns that it was sexually explicit and biased.
At the Harlem Public Library, employee Carly Vauthier reported that patrons will encounter a modest display set up to celebrate BBW. "It will include posters with this year's theme, books in our collection that have been challenged or banned in other parts of the country, and a coloring sheet and maze that patrons can complete. We will also be posting infographics and other related material to our Facebook page."
In Chinook, the school district's librarian, Kelsey Harry will be conducting an introductory lesson on BBW and censorship with the sixth graders at Meadowlark Elementary. "I pull several of the banned/challenged books that we have in our library to show to the kids. Often, there is a student favorite in the bunch, and I ask them how they'd feel if I told them they weren't allowed to read the Harry Potter series, for example. That usually gets a pretty lively discussion going! I have a lot of fun discussing BBW with the sixth graders because most of them have never heard of it before. I love hearing their thoughts on the subject and seeing their reactions to some of the reasons certain books are banned or challenged," Harry said.
At the high school library, Harry will create a book display with some background information on BBW.
School librarians in Harlem have similar plans. Angie Hawley, Harlem High School Librarian creates a display and runs a few contests during that week with banned books to ensure the week is memorable for her students.
"I do attempt to make the students and staff aware of Banned Books Week and what it represents," Hawley said.
At the elementary school, Librarian Kim Cornell will tie the topic of challenged books to her lessons on book genres and parts of a book since those are the topics she is currently addressing with her younger audiences.
Chinook High School English Teacher, Julie Terry usually celebrates BBW with an interactive hallway display, but she's trying to find a digital option this year since her usual display has been banned by the school's Covid guidelines. "The issue is that it can't be sanitized between students touching it," Terry explained.
The interactive bulletin board Terry used last year is one she purchased from Tracee Orman, an Illinois teacher whose resources, according to Terry, "are of phenomenal quality" and available from Teachers Pay Teachers. "I love this display because it's so much fun," Terry exclaimed.
Each card front lists a reason a particular book has been banned or challenged. Lifting the card reveals the title and author. "Students are always shocked to see why books have been challenged. One of the favorites states, 'Promotes violence against fathers' as the reason Dr. Seuss' Hop on Pop was challenged."
Books are usually challenged with the best intentions-to protect others, frequently children, from difficult ideas and information. However, these challenges represent acts of censorship and limit intellectual freedom, topics about which many have passionate opinions. That passion is clear in the words of Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas who said: "Restriction of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us."
