Category: Literacy

School Library Day AND Drop Everything and Read

Today is Canada School Library Day, BC School Library Day, and the day of the annual DEAR Challenge: Drop Everything and Read.

Library Books about Libraries

Library books about libraries and books. And librarians, literacy, information, reading, intellectual freedom, learning commons, and all topics to consider for Canadian Library Month and International School Library Month.

Drop Everything & Read on Monday

Next Monday the students and staff of our school will rise to the DEAR Challenge: Drop Everything and Read. During the long 2nd block (C block) everyone is challenged to read for 20 minutes.

October 27 is Canadian School Library Day & BC School Library Day. School Libraries are valuable in so many ways. Amongst the most important is how much school libraries can educate students and staff about the massive importance of recreational reading, and how vital school libraries are in supporting students by giving them access to books. We encourage everyone in our school– indeed, everyone in the community at large– to take up the challenge to Drop Everything and Read.

Canadian Library Month

Come down to your School Library this month to join us in celebrating Canadian Library Month. The theme for 2025 is “Libraries For Life.” We should all celebrate, enjoy, protect, support, and make use of libraries throughout our lives, from childhood to our golden years and every stage in between.

October is CLM and ISLM (International School Library Month): two good reasons among 18 billion other good reasons to visit your local library!

“The Librarians”

A new documentary explores how public school librarians are standing up for our rights in the fight against book bans and the rise of fascism.

Source: PBS News

Librarians emerge as first responders in the fight for democracy and our First Amendment Rights. As they well know, controlling the flow of ideas means control over communities.

“In Texas, the Krause List targets 850 books focused on race and LGBTQia+ stories – triggering sweeping book bans across the U.S. at an unprecedented rate. As tensions escalate, librarians connect the dots from heated school and library board meetings nationwide to lay bare the underpinnings of extremism fueling the censorship efforts. Despite facing harassment, threats, and laws aimed at criminalizing their work – the librarians’ rallying cry for freedom to read is a chilling cautionary tale. ” (thelibrariansfilm.com)

Find out more about the documentary film “The Librarians”

The fight against book bans by public school librarians shown in new documentary. Check out this story from PBS News.

October 5-11 is Banned Books Week
October is Canadian Library Month
October is International School Library Month

Banned Books Week

October 5-11 is the ALA’s “Banned Books Week.” Censorship and book banning is alive and well, and we need to fight it. In Canada, and other nations that claim to embrace democracy and freedom, fascism no longer just lurking in the shadows– it is here, out in the open, and seizing power where it can. Fascists seek to control information as a means of controlling the population, and the censorship of books and other reading materials is one prong in that attack.

In Canada we observe the similar “Freedom to Read Week” in the new year. However, we can also join with our American neighbours in recognizing Banned Books Week and the attacks on freedom and democracy that are posed by the massively sharp rise of book banning. The US has seen an especially concerted attack on books for teens about marginalized communities. We are not immune from such fascist tactics in Canada, as book challenges have risen in step with the rise of far right propaganda, and in most cases are centered on schools, classrooms and school libraries.

Find out more about Banned Books Week.

School Libraries and Intellectual Freedom

School Libraries should be bastions of intellectual freedom. Tragically, the School Library has always been a battleground in the struggles between those that would protect our rights and freedoms and those that would impose their beliefs on others.

This has become all too evident in the U.S. in recent years, and sadly we in Canada are not immune. Provincial Ministries of Education, School Boards, and individual schools and school libraries have been sucked into the current climate of extreme political polarization. Attacks on the freedom to read are on the rise, and include recent decisions made by the government of Alberta. The following are quotes from the response of Canadian School Libraries:

“Individual parents have the right to decide on their child’s reading, but they do not have the right to impose it on everyone.

The selection and availability of school library and learning resource materials should be made by trained professionals, not politicians and bureaucrats.

Not every book in a school library is meant for every student. Schools need to have a wide range of age and developmentally appropriate resources that cover the needs of the student population.

School library collections, with a richness and diversity that allows students to see themselves and experience lives other than their own, are developed within the lens of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the rights and freedoms it affords to all Canadians, including children.”


Find out more about Canadian School Libraries

Indigenous Peoples Collection

Celebrate National Indigenous History Month in Canada by learning more about First Nations, Metis and Inuit people. Come down to your School Library to browse through our Indigenous Peoples Collection. This section of the School Library is devoted to titles from authentic indigenous writers.

All titles in the Indigenous Peoples Collection are designated with spine labels bearing the “IPC” prefix. Sublocations in the IPC include:

  • Coast Salish
  • Northwest Coast
  • First Nations
  • Inuit
  • Metis
  • Urban
  • Global
  • Own Voice
  • Truth and Reconciliation

and more…

June is National Indigenous History Month in Canada.

Freedom to Read Week: Do You Know Your Banned Books?

Play a “Sporcle” that asks you to show off your knowledge of some of the most challenged books of the past few years.

Freedom to Read Week in Canada is February 23 to March 1

Get Caught Reading Banned Books

In the past few years, the number of challenges to books in both Canada and the United States has exploded. And while sanity prevails in many cases, in more and more places the censors have been successful. In some jurisdictions, hundreds and hundreds of different titles have been pulled from libraries, schools, government offices and other public institutions. In the private sector, bookstores and publishers have reported the increasing pressures of censorship. Writers have commented on the chilling effect this has on intellectual freedom.

Stand up for your rights and freedoms. Democracy is built on upon your right to information. You have the right to choose for yourself.

Adults have the right to choose for themselves what they want to read. Adults don’t have the right to choose what other people get to read. Parents have the right– and the responsibility– to teach and guide and discuss with their children about what types of library materials are right or wrong for them. Parents are free to have their opinions on what materials are good or bad for children in general They even have the right to express their opinions about why they think certain materials are good or bad for children. Parents do not have the right to decide for other people’s children what they can or can’t read.

February 23 to March 1 is Freedom to Read Week in Canada