Read-a-Thon Edition One: Reading is a Sacred

Know Your Rights

To Students:

Thanks to Nemo, there's a few feet of snow on the ground making it a great time of year to curl up with a great story. Before we get to the fun. I'd like to begin this series by focusing on a your  right to access reading material.

You might face a time where your parent tells you that you're not allowed to read something. They may have a variety of reasons and they have the right to do what is best for you. But, this protection ends with your parents. Nobody else has the right to tell you what you can and can not read. Not another parent, not a teacher, not nobody (excepting your parents).

Being a member of a democrocy also means that you take the time to know and understand your rights. Please, take the time to read this article Free Access to Libraries for Minors from the American Library Association.

If anybody besides your parent tell you that you're not allowed to read something. Please report it to a trusted adult and ask that they fill out a "Challenged Book Report Form."

Censorship Inspired Videos

A Word from our Gatekeepers

To Parents:

As an teacher, the Common Core asserts that it is our responsibility to cultivate students who are engaged, open-minded- but discerning- readers and listeners. Our democracy depends on literate thinkers who are able to question an author's assumptions and premises and assess the veracity of their claims and the soundness of their reasoning.

If we make decisions about what a reader should and should not have access to, then we are affectively undermining the essence of this charge. With that said, every parent has the right to deem what is and is not acceptable for their own child to read. The following are seven propositions affirmed by the American Library Association.

• It is in the public interest for publishers and librarians to make available the widest diversity of views and expressions, including those that are unorthodox, unpopular, or considered dangerous by the majority.
• Publishers, librarians, and booksellers do not need to endorse every idea or presentation they make available.
• It is contrary to the public interest for publishers or librarians to bar access to writings on the basis of the personal history or political affiliations of the author.
• There is no place in our society for efforts to coerce the taste of others, to confine adults to the reading matter deemed suitable for adolescents, or to inhibit the efforts of writers to achieve artistic expression.
• It is not in the public interest to force a reader to accept the prejudgment of a label characterizing any expression or its author as subversive or dangerous.
• It is the responsibility of publishers and librarians, as guardians of the people's freedom to read, to contest encroachments upon that freedom by individuals or groups seeking to impose their own standards or tastes upon the community at large; and by the government whenever it seeks to reduce or deny public access to public information.
• It is the responsibility of publishers and librarians to give full meaning to the freedom to read by providing books that enrich the quality and diversity of thought and expression. By the exercise of this affirmative responsibility, they can demonstrate that the answer to a "bad" book is a good one, the answer to a "bad" idea is a good one.

For more in-depth information about these propositions read the American Library Association's Freedom to Read Statement