Banned Books Week - Library activities

Banned Books Week is a cause close to my heart. Like many librarians, I may not agree with your choices, but I will fight for your rights to freedom of speech, religion, reading whatever you want, etc. This year's theme was particularly good. 

I seized this opportunity to do a breakout about censorship and banned books that two English teachers took advantage of over the course of three school days. The library was full of awe, shock, and that positive vibrancy that we librarians crave. 

We were also allowed to take over the school's loudspeaker during morning announcements and run a contest for homerooms (called Focus at my school). We explained what banned books week is and read a quote each day from a different banned book. (It actually worked out that our English classes were all reading banned books or had already completed them that week so we focused on books they had read for our quotes.) The first class to call with the correct book title the quote was from won for the day. Small prizes were delivered. One class won two days so they got a bigger prize the second time. Let me tell you, our phones were frantically ringing as soon as the Pledge of Allegiance was done. After we had a winner, we posted the quote and book to our library social media sites along with the daily winner.

The weirdest thing we received permission to do was to turn all of the lights off in the library for one full school day with the exception of one light - representing the theme. We had signs everywhere showing that we were open. By the time the afternoon sun shone in the windows, you couldn't even tell the lights were out. However, it lead to great discussions with our staff and students about banning books and censorship.