This week Canadians everywhere are celebrating Freedom to Read Week, which brings awareness to censorship of the written word. This is something that libraries take very seriously since we’re in the business of providing people with materials that serve to engage, entertain and educate folks and strive to respect and reflect all opinions!  Many people think censorship of books is a thing of the past, but it  is alive and well in Canada and worldwide. In fact, I bet you’d be surprised to lean that some of the books you might have read and loved have been challenged in schools and libraries nationwide! In fact, many of the books challenged are actually meant for children and teenagers, including R.L.Stine’s Goosebumps series and Barbara Park’s Junie B. Jones series. Take a look at the list here to learn about books that have stirred up controversy in Canada and the reasons why.

Windsor Public Library has been showing its support for the freedom to read system-wide with book displays and a social media awareness campaign. If you follow us on Facebook, you can play along with our Freedom to Read Week guessing game . Answers will be revealed tomorrow! This list from Popcrush covers some of the most banned YA reads around. Which of these books have you read and enjoyed?

Finally, if you want to learn more about the freedom to read or intellectual freedom in general, take a look at this page
created by the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh. It covers most everything you might want to know about the subject!