{"id":27695,"date":"2022-08-09T00:01:00","date_gmt":"2022-08-09T04:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/?p=27695"},"modified":"2025-04-09T12:09:52","modified_gmt":"2025-04-09T16:09:52","slug":"books-unite-us-censorship-divides-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/2022\/08\/books-unite-us-censorship-divides-us\/","title":{"rendered":"Books Unite Us, Censorship Divides Us"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"650\" height=\"285\" src=\"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/BBW2022-website-slide_theme-1140x500-1-650x285.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-27696\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/BBW2022-website-slide_theme-1140x500-1-650x285.png 650w, https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/BBW2022-website-slide_theme-1140x500-1-300x132.png 300w, https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/BBW2022-website-slide_theme-1140x500-1-768x337.png 768w, https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/BBW2022-website-slide_theme-1140x500-1-160x70.png 160w, https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/BBW2022-website-slide_theme-1140x500-1.png 1140w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 650px) 100vw, 650px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><em>Image courtesy of ALA<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left wp-block-paragraph\">Now that we are past the first week of August, which as Natalie Babbitt so famously wrote in <em>Tuck Everlasting<\/em>, is &#8220;the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning [and] the weeks . . . that follow [are] a drop to the chill of autumn&#8221; we look ahead six weeks to make sure our planning is in place for this fall&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/bannedbooksweek.org\/\">Banned Books Week<\/a>, which begins September 18. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">During this especially intense period of widespread book challenges it&#8217;s especially important to take this time in 2022 to, as ALA says, &#8220;spotlight current and historical attempts to censor books in libraries and schools [and] bring together the entire book community \u2014 librarians, booksellers, publishers, journalists, teachers, and readers of all types \u2014 in shared support of the freedom to seek and to express ideas.&#8221; ALA provides many resources to support the celebration of the freedom to read and the raising of awareness of the dangers of creating barriers to that freedom, including free downloads and display ideas, all available <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ala.org\/advocacy\/bbooks\/banned\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Even more resources are available at the collaborative <a href=\"https:\/\/bannedbooksweek.org\/\">Banned Books Week<\/a> site thanks to the ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom and the Banned Books Week Coalition. And congratulations and thanks for their leadership and inspiration are due to this year&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/bannedbooksweek.org\/george-m-johnson-named-honorary-chair-of-banned-books-week\/\">Honorary Chair for Banned Books Week<\/a>, activist and author George M. Johnson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What additional resources and ideas do you have to share as we continue planning for next month?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Andrew Medlar, co-chair of the ALSC Intellectual Freedom Committee, is an ALSC past president who works at Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s time to make sure our planning is in place for this year&#8217;s Banned Books Week, which begins September 18. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":167,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":"","_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[272],"tags":[1004,1456,1254,832],"class_list":["post-27695","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogger-intellectual-freedom-committee","tag-banned-books-week","tag-book-challenges","tag-challenged-books","tag-intellectual-freedom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27695","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/167"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27695"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27695\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}