Freedom to Read

Sunset with silhouette of a girl readingMarch is National Reading Month and thus an excellent time to celebrate the joys and wonders of reading.  Reading is a fundamental skill that enriches us in countless ways; for some of us, reading a great book is like welcoming a new friend into our lives.  The freedom to choose what you want to read is exciting and empowering and yet this freedom is being challenged at school and public libraries across the country in record numbers.  We all have things we have to read for work and/or school and those documents are important, instructive, and even life changing.  But there is something about choosing your own books that harkens back to our early days as a kid standing in front of the children’s section in our local library and reaching for that title that somehow spoke to us saying “Read me!”  So exercise your right to read whatever you want by picking up a book of your choice and reading a few minutes each day.  To start you out, have a look at the bookish suggestions on our WU Reads Reading Guide.

The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go. – Dr Seuss

There are many little ways to enlarge your world.  Love of books is the best of all. – Jacqueline Kennedy

For information about censorship see:  The American Library Association’s Fight Censorship site:  https://www.ala.org/advocacy/fight-censorship