Your School Library has ALL of these books. You don’t have to read any of these books. But you can if you want to. And it must make you wonder, why are some people so set on trying to keep you from reading these books? In some ways, doesn’t that make you want to read them even more?
Come down to your School Library to check out our display for ISLM and for Canadian Library Month, including books and other materials on libraries, librarians, information science, literacy, and much more.
October 1-7 is Banned Books Week. Come down to your School Library to find out more. Find out why book banning is a threat to your freedoms. See the books that are among the most challenged in the world today. Read a banned book this week. Read what you want to read all the time.
October is International School Library Month and Canadian Library Month. Join with us as we celebrate the power and joy of libraries, and our commit to protecting this vital institution for all people.
Come down to your School Library to have a look at this year’s Surrey Teens Read novels and to get started on reading your way through the list. Once again Surrey Teens Read has brought us ten amazing books. The list includes a mix of YA and other genres of fiction in these novels for high school aged readers. Remember, we have multiple copies, so you and your friends can read the same novels! Not only that, high school students all over Surrey are starting to read their way through the 10 nominated titles for 2023-20243.
Find out more about Surrey Teens Read
September 8 is International Literacy Day. Literacy brings us joy and is a vital force for human rights, health, dignity and prosperity. Join with us in your School Library as we join with billions of people all over the planet in celebrating literacy and in standing together for the cause of improving literacy for all people.
From UNESCO:
Since 1967, International Literacy Day (ILD) celebrations have taken place annually around the world to remind the public of the importance of literacy as a matter of dignity and human rights, and to advance the literacy agenda towards a more literate and sustainable society.
Despite steady progress made across the world, literacy challenges persist with at least 763 million young people and adults lacking basic literacy skills in 2020. The recent COVID-19 crisis and other crisis, such as climate change and conflicts, have been exacerbating the challenges.
The students of the school district have spoken. The 2023 Surrey Teens Read Book of the Year is: Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao.
Thanks to all the students who read this year’s slate of Surrey Teens Read nominees and voted for their favourites. Thanks to all the Teacher-Librarians on the STR Committee whose efforts make Surrey Teens Read a success every year by offering up a wonderful selection of titles.
Find out more about Surrey Teens Read
May 3rd is World Press Freedom Day, as established by UNESCO / United Nations. The freedom of the press is essential to the establishment and health of democracy. In our world of social media, misinformation, disinformation, fake news and conspiracy theories, more than ever we need a free, independent, professional and ethical press.
Find out more:
Yom HaShoah, or Holocaust Remembrance Day, is the day that Jews around the world remember the six million who perished in the Holocaust. In Israel it is a national day of observance known officially as Yom Hazikaron laShoah ve-laG’vurah, in English “Holocaust and Heroism Remembrance Day.” In addition to remembrance of the unspeakable horrors of the Holocaust, the day is also used to celebrate acts of resistance and heroism on the part of survivors and allies.
This year Yom HaShoah begins on the evening of April 17 and continues until sundown on April 18.
Find out more about the Holocaust, the systematic mass-murder of more than 6 million Jews, and other groups, targeted by the Nazis and their allies:
Do you believe that you should be able to choose what you read? Or should other people be able to decide for you what you can read? Freedom to Read Week celebrates our fundamental freedoms as citizens of democracies and our fundamental rights as human beings. Freedom to Read Week also asks to to beware of the forces at work which erode and seek to destroy your rights and freedoms.
Do you take your Freedom to Read for granted? These are books that are available in our libraries which have been challenged, and in far too many cases, removed from shelves, and banned. Many of the books pictured here are on the list of the top 20 most banned books in the U.S. for the 2021-2022 school year.
This isn’t just happening in authoritarian states such as North Korea, Iran, China or Russia. This is happening in the so-called free world. This is happening in the United States. So far it hasn’t been as bad in Canada, but challenges are growing here and there are too many who want American censorship to come to Canada.
Find out more:
Banned in the USA: The Growing Movement to Censor Books in Schools
Join with us at your School Library as we observe and celebrate Freedom to Read Week in Canada, February 19-25, 2023.
Lord Tweedsmuir Secondary School Library 