Tag: censorship

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

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

Banned Books Week

September 22 to 29 is the ALA’s “Banned Books Week.” While we in Canada observe the similar “Freedom to Read Week” in the new year, we can also join with our American neighbours in recognizing the very real threats to 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.

Book Challenges in Canada

From September 2022 to the end of August 2023, Canadian libraries, especially school libraries, faced the highest number of book challenges ever for a 12 month period in Canada (source). The number of official challenge is likely just a small fraction of the challenges that go unreported– ALA studies suggest 82 -97% of challenges go unreported (source).

Intellectual freedom has been a pillar of library philosophy for nearly a century; and in our current climate, it is perhaps our most valuable tool in our efforts to amplify the voices of the most marginalized within our communities.

Michael Nyby

Read the full article, “A Rising Tide of Censorship: Recent Challenges in Canadian Libraries” by Michael Nyby of the CFLA Intellectual Freedom Committee, at Freedomtoread.ca

Freedom to Read Week

Canada’s Freedom to Read Week in 2024 is February 18-24.

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 you to stand up for your rights and oppose those who want to take away your freedom to read.

Find out more at freedomtoread.ca

Banned Books Week

Source: ALA

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?

Here are some more books that were challenged and/or banned

Banned Books Week

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.