This week in the library we are celebrating our freedom to read.

Since 1982 the American Library Association has been commemorating this freedom by promoting books that have been banned or challenged at some point in time in the United States.

Many were banned or challenged on the grounds that they were “not age appropriate for youth.”

At Claremont Middle School we celebrate the diversity of opinions and stories that make us great and we trust our students to know what they like and don’t and why.

After all, as Lawrence Hill, author of “Dear Sir: I Intend to Burn Your Book,” said, “Literature should get us talking even when we disagree.”

–Emily Phillips