Freedom to Read Week 2009 Starts Feb. 22

The 25th annual Freedom To Read Week will take place in Canada between February 22 and February 28. It is to highlight the cause of censorship.

The Book and Periodical Council sponsor the yearly Freedom to Read Week as a way to promote the right for all of us to read whatever we want and to bring attention to the number of challenges books face yearly. Their position statement states that "the freedom to choose what we read does not, however, include the freedom to choose for others." Many great Canadian books have been challenged. Currently, Margaret Atwood's novel The Handmaid's Tale is under attack in Toronto. Other books that have been challenged in Canada in the past include The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz by Mordecai Richler, The Wars by Timothy Findley, The Adventures of TinTin by Herge, and The Goosebumps series by R.L. Stine. Many times it just takes one complaint for a book to be removed from a library, a bookstore, or a school. While I believe that people have every right to question and challenge books, I do not believe that they have the right to deny the rights of anyone else read that book if they want to.