Feb 21, 2021
Freedom to Read in Canada is a fundamental right, and a gift. To bring attention to the guarantee of intellectual freedom under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the Book and Periodical Council annually "reaffirms its support of this vital principle and opposes all efforts to suppress writing and silence writers". This year Freedom to Read Week is from Febrary 21 - 27, 2021. When we witness so much turbulence and authoritarianism in the world, it is with gratitude we realize that we have the freedom to read what we choose. Canadian public libraries embody this right and have a responsibility to provide a range of viewpoints for individuals to develop their own critical thoughts. You, as an individual, have a right to choose to read what you would like from a cacaphony of voices. YOU choose, you reject - for yourself, and your family, but not for others. Libraries are a place where new thinking is encouraged "in unexpected directions ...It is a democratizing and liberating force like none other"(Margaret Atwood).
Freedom to Read - makes you think, doesn't it?
Here are some books that have been challenged in public libraries - check one out and let the world know what you're reading!
- Margaret Laurence, The Diviners
- J.D. Salinger, Catcher in the Rye
- Alice Munro, Lives of Girls and Women
- Mordecai Richler, The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz
- John Steinbeck, Of Mice and Men
- Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
- J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter
- Mark Twain, Huckleberry Finn
- Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale
