Freedom to Read Week | Powell River Public Library

February 18-24, 2024

Freedom to Read Week is an annual event that encourages Canadians to think about and reaffirm their commitment to intellectual freedom. PRPL supports YOUR freedom to read! The library offers a wide range of materials representing various points of view. We value open access to information for all members of our communities, and we stand against calls for censorship.

Freedom To Read Resources:

How You Can Celebrate

Freedom to Read Week provides an opportunity for Canadians to focus on issues of intellectual freedom as they affect your community, your province or territory, our country, and countries around the world. Learn more, attend an event or program at the library, or check out our reading list of books challenged in Canada:

	Betty: The Helen Betty Osborne Story by Robertson, David Graphic Novel – 2015 Challenged for sensitive content. Helen Betty Osborne, known as Betty to her closest friends and family, dreamed of becoming a teacher. She left home to attend residential school and later moved to The Pas, Manitoba, to attend high school. On November 13, 1971, Betty was abducted and brutally murdered by four young men. Initially met with silence and indifference, her tragic murder resonates loudly today. Betty represents one of almost 1,200 Indigenous women in Canada who have been murdered or gone missing. This is her story.
	The Handmaid’s Tale by Atwood, Margaret Novel – 1985 Challenged for profane language and content. Futuristic novel set in a society that has reverted to the repressive intolerance of the original puritans. Offred, the handmaid whose job is to function as surrogate mother to the sterile marriage of an elderly leader, longs to escape.
	Snow Falling on Cedars by Guterson, David Novel – 1994 Challenged for sexual content. In 1954, Ishmael Chambers, a local reporter who lost an arm in the war, covers the murder trial of a Japanese-American fisherman, whose wife had been Ishmael’s boyhood sweetheart.
	This One Summer by Tamaki, Mariko Graphic Novel – 2014 Challenged for inappropriate language and mature themes. Rose and Windy are summer friends whose families have visited Awago Beach for as long as they can remember. But this year is different, and they soon find themselves tangled in teen love and family crisis.