Last year, the American Library Association logged 472 attempts by groups or individuals to have books removed from library shelves and from classrooms. Research shows that reported challenges represent only 20 to 25 percent of all challenges made. Of even greater concern is the fact that every challenge is an attempt to make ideas inaccessible to their intended audience. The freedom to read is about choice and respecting the right of others to choose for themselves and their families what they wish to read. It is one of the most precious freedoms we have in a democratic society.
Book banning and challenging has a domino effect.
If we stand quietly by and let the first book come off the shelf, we run the risk they all will come tumbling down.