Banned Books Week: Celebrating the Freedom to Read
It’s Banned Books Week! This is literally my favorite week of the year. We just finished reading Fahrenheit 451 and my students are excited to start reading some banned books of their own. (I, of course, suggested a few of my favorites. Next to Fahrenheit 451, I love Catcher in the Rye, To Kill a Mockingbird, and Howl.) I have lots of events planned for this week, including the unveiling of the best bulletin board ever, a few articles and an interview with the president of Uprise Books – a nonprofit dedicated to getting banned books into the hands of underprivileged teenagers for free– and as some awesome student-made videos that will be shown in my school. I’ve also carved out some time to FINALLY read 1984 cover-to-cover.
Let’s start the festivities off with a proclamation. This has been adapted from ALA.org.
WHEREAS, the freedom to read is essential to our democracy, and reading is among our greatest freedoms; and
WHEREAS, privacy is essential to the exercise of that freedom, and the right to privacy is the right to open inquiry without having the subject of one’s interest examined or scrutinized by others; and
WHEREAS, the freedom to read is protected by our Constitution; and
WHEREAS some individuals, groups, and public authorities work to remove or limit access to reading materials, to censor content in schools, to label “controversial” views, to distribute lists of “objectionable” books or authors, and to purge libraries of materials reflecting the diversity of society; and
WHEREAS, both governmental intimidation and the fear of censorship cause authors who seek to avoid controversy to practice self-censorship, thus limiting our access to new ideas; and
WHEREAS, every silencing of a heresy, every enforcement of an orthodoxy, diminishes the toughness and resilience of American society and leaves it less able to deal with controversy and difference; and
WHEREAS, Americans still favor free enterprise in ideas and expression, and can be trusted to exercise critical judgment, to recognize propaganda and misinformation, and to make their own decisions about what they read and believe, and to exercise the responsibilities that accompany this freedom; and
WHEREAS, intellectual freedom is essential to the preservation of a free society and a creative culture; and
WHEREAS, conformity limits the range and variety of inquiry and expression on which our democracy and our culture depend; and
WHEREAS, the American Library Association’s Banned Books Week: Celebrating the Freedom to Read is observed during the last week of September each year as a reminder to Americans not to take their precious freedom for granted; and
WHEREAS, Banned Books Week celebrates the freedom to choose or the freedom to express one’s opinion even if that opinion might be considered unorthodox or unpopular and stresses the importance of ensuring the availability of those unorthodox or unpopular viewpoints to all who wish to read them; now, therefore, be it
RESOLVED, that Small Strokes celebrates the American Library Association’s Banned Books Week, (Insert Dates Here), and be it further
RESOLVED, that Small Strokes encourages all libraries and bookstores to acquire and make available materials representative of all the people in our society; and be it further
RESOLVED, that Small Strokes encourages free people to read freely, now and forever.
Adopted by Small Strokes
September 30, 2012