Please feel free to express your concerns as parents and citizens and encourage others to who share these concerns. Although ALA opposes censorship in any form, it is strongly in favor of common sense and parents' responsibility to guide their own children's reading. ALA does not believe one parent or a small group of parents has the right to impose their values on other people or their children. The role of libraries in a democracy has always been as an education center representing a multitude of views from which individuals are free to select.
Freedom of choice is actually our most prwhat Banned Books Week is all about.
While actual book bannings are relatively rare, the number of challenges has been on the rise for a number of years. We cannot afford to take our freedom to read for granted. Unless you have listened closely to the rhetoric of Banned Books Week, you ve probably figured that fanatics have succeeded in getting hundreds of books tossed into the fire. That s not exactly the case. But the Chicago-based American Library Association, a sponsor of the week, wants you to think so.