February 22-28 is Freedom to Read Week, the Canadian equivalent of the American Banned Books Week. There are lots of free materials and kits to download at FreedomtoReadWeek.ca – just click on this link.
There are banners and posters that you can distribute, so even if you feel that you might be a little late to publicize this event, you can email a kit or just the link to English teachers and library personnel in your school board so that they will be able to print them out if they choose.
During Freedom To Read Week, one of my favourite things to do as a high school librarian was to print out a list of frequently challenged books that is available at the website and display the books with the list. Students used to wave the list at me and exclaim with disbelief that some of the entries should never have been on the list, particularly The Diary of Anne Frank!
Thinking about the importance of the right to access reading material is an excellent way to highlight some of the great books in our school libraries.
