Join the Banned: Celebrating the Freedom to Read

Banned Books Week: Celebrating the Freedom to Read
September 25−October 2, 2010

Banned Books Week (BBW) is an annual event celebrating the freedom to read and the importance of the First Amendment. Held during the last week of September, Banned Books Week highlights the benefits of free and open access to information while drawing attention to the harms of censorship by spotlighting actual or attempted bannings of books across the United States.

Intellectual freedom—the freedom to access information and express ideas, even if the information and ideas might be considered unorthodox or unpopular—provides the foundation for Banned Books Week. BBW stresses the importance of ensuring the availability of unorthodox or unpopular viewpoints for all who wish to read and access them.

The books featured during Banned Books Week have been targets of attempted bannings. Fortunately, while some books were banned or restricted, in a majority of cases the books were not banned, all thanks to the efforts of librarians, teachers, booksellers, and members of the community to retain the books in the library collections. Imagine how many more books might be challenged—and possibly banned or restricted—if librarians, teachers, and booksellers across the country did not use Banned Books Week each year to teach the importance of our First Amendment rights and the power of literature, and to draw attention to the danger that exists when restraints are imposed on the availability of information in a free society.

Banned Books Week is sponsored by the American Booksellers Association; American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression; the American Library Association; American Society of Journalists and Authors; Association of American Publishers; and the National Association of College Stores. It is endorsed by the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress.

Your school teacher librarian and School Board have policies in place to address library materials that are challenged. Please contact the school teacher librarian if you have any questions or concerns about any of your school's library material.

TOP 10 MOST FREQUENTLY CHALLENGED BOOKS OF 2009:
1. "TTYL; TTFN; L8R, G8R (series), by Lauren Myracle
2. "And Tango Make Three" by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson
3. "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" by Stephen Chbosky
4. "To Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee
5. Twilight (series) by Stephenie Meyer
6. "Catcher in the Rye" by J.D. Salinger
7. "My Sister's Keeper" by Jodi Picoult
8. "The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big, Round Things" by Carolyn Mackler
9. "The Color Purple" by Alice Walker
10. "The Chocolate War" by Robert Comier

Celebra el Mas de Herencia Hispanica!

Celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month! This celebration begins on September 15, the anniversary of independence for five Latin American countries - Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua. In addition, Mexico declared its independence on September 15, and Chile on September 18.

The term Hispanic, as defined by the U.S. Census Bureau, refers to Spanish-speaking people in the United States of any race. On the 2000 Census form, people of Spanish/Hispanic/Latino origin could identify themselves as Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, or "other Spanish/Hispanic/Latino." More than 35 million people identified themselves as Hispanic or Latino on the 2000 Census.

Check out these web sites:

Colorin Colorado - http://colorincolorado.org/ Colorin Colorado (este se ha acabado) is a web-based service that provides information, activities, and advice for Spanish-speaking parents and educators of English language learners (ELLs)
Comfm.com - http://comfm.com Links to live audio and video broadcasts from around the world. Choose your country and the type of station.
El Mundo - http//www.elmundo.es/ from Madrid, Spain. An online version of Madrid's daily newspaper.
Proyecto Sherezade - http://home.ccumanitoba.ca/~fernand4/ short stories each month from the Spanish-speaking world. You can even listen to some in MP3 format.
Hispanos Famosos(Famous Hispanics) - http://www.coloquio.com/famosos
Biographies in English.
Las Mujeres - http://www.lasmujeres.com/ Las Mujures provides resources on notable Latin women. (politicians, entrepreneurs, writers, singers, painters, actresses, educators, and others)
Quia! Spanish - http://www.quia.com/shared/spanish Online activities and games for learning Spanish.

On Wednesday, the preschoolers will be visiting the library media center for the first time to check out books. Each student will be able to checkout only one book at a time. It will be due the next Wednesday. Students who do not return their book on library day will not be able to check out another book until that book is returned.

Lee Todos Los Dias!
Senora T. Reiter
K-12 Teacher Librarian

U.S. Constitution Week, September 17-23

Constitution Day (or Citizenship Day) commemorates the formation and signing of the U.S. Constitution by thirty-nine brave men on September 17, 1787, recognizing all who, are born in the U.S. or by naturalization, have become citizens.

The law establishing the holiday was created in 2004 with the passage of an amendment by Senator Robert Byrd to the Omnibus spending bill of 2004. Before this law was enacted, the holiday was known as "Citizenship Day". In addition to renaming the holiday "Constitution Day and Citizenship Day," the act mandates that all publicly funded educational institutions provide educational programming on the history of the American Constitution on that day. In May 2005, the United States Department of Education announced the enactment of this law and that it would apply to any school receiving federal funds of any kind. This holiday is not observed by granting time off work for federal employees.

No matter how much we argue about the details of its meaning today, in the opinion of many, the Constitution signed in Philadelphia on September 17, 1787 represents the greatest expression of statesmanship and compromise ever written. In just four hand-written pages, the Constitution gives us no less than the owners' manual to the greatest form of government the world has ever known.

Posters to display in our schools commemorating Constitution Day and Constitution Week have been generously donated by the Mason City, Iowa, chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution.

MORE INFORMATION:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_Day_(United States)
http://www.constitutionday.com
http://usgovinfo.about.com/blconstday.htm

Thank you, Founding Fathers!
Mrs. T. Reiter, K-12 Teacher Librarian

"Mom, can I play on the computer?"

I’m sure you hear that at least once a day from each of your children. Fortunately, there really is a lot of good Internet content for kids. Here are just a few....

The American Library Association offers suggestions of great web sites for kids. Go to www.ala.org/greatsites for their list of suggestions. Their Website of the Month is Cybrary at http://www.cybrary.org. This web page offers lots of links to sites selected by a school librarian for kids in grades three through eight. You can find sites that help with your homework, and you can find sites just for fun.

The Anderson County Library in Anderson, S.C., has a website at www.andersonlibrary.org/ch-links.htm listing links and search engines for students.

Let your kids try out these sites the next time they are bored. The sites are full of games, puzzles, recipes, riddles, magic tricks, experiments, and craft projects. Go to this website located at http://www.funology.com.

Let me know if you would like more information on kid-friendly websites.

Don't forget Literacy Night at Jacobson Elementary on Thursday, September 16, from 6:30-7:30pm!

Read Every Day,
Mrs. T. Reiter, K-12 Teacher Librarian