Banned Books Week is celebrated the last full week in September and strives to make the public aware of books that have been banned or challenged in schools and public libraries, as well as in bookstores and other venues. Founded in 1982, the event is sponsored by the American Library Association, American Booksellers Association, American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, American Society of Journalists and Authors, and the Association of American Publishers. The activities that champion the freedom to read during Banned Books Week include displays of banned or challenged books and read-outs in communities across the nation. In 2012, the American Library Association marked the 30th anniversary of Banned Books Week by asking libraries in every state to participate in a virtual read-out. Recordings of these read-outs and of writers talking about challenges to their books are posted on a Banned Books Week Channel on YouTube. Students should understand that they do have the freedom to read, and they should use this week to become aware of attempts to abridge their rights.

A Day No Pigs Would Die, Speak, Thirteen Reasons Why These are some of the most beloved, and most challenged, books. Leaving controversial titles such as these out of your collection or limiting their access is not the answer to challenges. While ALA's Office for Intellectual Freedom reports more than 4,500 challenges to young adult literature from 2000 through 2009. This authoritative handbook gives you the information you need to defend challenged books with an informed response and ensure free access to young book lovers. With a profile of each book that includes its plot and characters, related materials and published reviews, awards and prizes, and Web and audiovisual resources, you will be prepared to answer even the toughest attacks.

Keep Them Reading is a concise handbook for teachers, librarians, administrators, and district personnel about how to prevent censorship in a school or district—and what to do if it happens. Written by two award-winning authors who have devoted much of their careers to anti-censorship work, this book discusses the overall importance of reading in all academic endeavors and demonstrates how challenges and censorship can derail even the best literacy program. Each chapter contains practical tools, advice, and resources for building understanding about issues of intellectual freedom and for creating a plan to help all parties work through challenges before they turn into damaging censorship incidents. The last chapter contains advice from authors who have dealt with censorship, such as Judy Blume, and experts on the subject, such as Joan Bertin, executive director of the National Coalition Against Censorship. Book Features: Procedures for dealing with censorship challenges before they arise. Protocols to help teachers and librarians meet challenges and resist censorship. Samples of actual letters teachers can use to defend their selection of a text. Detailed suggestions for conducting meetings with parents and district personnel. Helpful lists of books dealing with censorship, relevant court cases, and national organizations offering support and resources. “The first academic freedom book of 2013 . . . an excellent one.” —Read the article on the Huffington Post Education Blog “There are no easy answers, but there are lessons to be learned from the ‘good fight’ of classroom teachers who have been victims of the censorship wars. . . . Keep Them Reading offers sage advice and guidance about what to do when the censor calls.” —From the Foreword by Pat Scales, past president, ALSC American Library Association “Sooner or later every reading and literature teacher will encounter someone who wants to limit students' experiences with a text Keep Them Reading lays out a very common-sense pro-active mechanism that is both respectful of parents and community values and students' and teachers' rights. Every teacher and administrator should read this handbook and then establish the processes that Lent and Pipkin recommend.” —Nancy G. Patterson, co-editor, Language Arts Journal of Michigan, Associate Professor, Literacy Studies, College of Education, Grand Valley State University “The real heroes are the librarians and teachers who, at no small risk to themselves, refuse to lie down and play dead for censors.” —Bruce Coville, bestselling author “The topic of this book—censorship—can strike fear in any educator's heart. So it is a delightful surprise that what seeps through these pages is love: love for the families whose concerns for their children, Pipkin and Lent remind us, are occasions for respectful engagement; and, above all, a deep love for books and the readers who are comforted, challenged, transported, and transformed by them.” —Maja Wilson, author of Rethinking Rubrics in Writing Assessment

School counseling strategies that promote student success! So much is expected to prepare today’s students for success—academic achievement, career and college readiness, emotional and social competency, to name a few. School counselors can make an enormous positive difference in children’s lives. Yet, school counseling programs are in crisis because of undefined roles, skyrocketing student-counselor ratios, and decreasing budgets. Leaders and counselors must move away from outdated roles and embrace school counseling programs that ensure readiness for ALL students. In a succinct Q&A format, the authors provide school counselors and educational leaders with 101 solutions to common counseling issues across the K–12 spectrum on topics ranging from data-driven counseling to bullying, , collaboration, and equity Stories of school counselors and educational leaders who have successfully implemented these solutions Numerous print and digital resources for further exploration, including online supplements Discover a wealth of affordable counseling practices that make your job easier and more effective, demonstrate the power of a school counselor, and help all students succeed. "101 Solutions for School Counselors and Leaders in Challenging Times is an invaluable resource for all professional school counselors developing a comprehensive school counseling program to ensure college and career readiness for all K–12 students." —Diane Smith, School Counselor Smithport Area School District, PA "With a focus on core standards, social justice, and evidence-based programs and services, this book is a must-have for anyone interested in a comprehensive, practical approach to school counseling strategies that promote student success." — Tamara Davis, Professor Marymount University, Arlington, VA

This book presents a curricular framework for students grades 6–12 that school librarians and teachers can use collaboratively to enhance reading skill development, promote literature appreciation, and motivate young people to incorporate reading into their lives, beyond the required schoolwork. Supporting Reading Grades 6–12: A Guideaddresses head-on the disturbing trend of declining leisure reading among students and demonstrates how school librarians can contribute to the development of lifelong reading habits as well as improve students' motivation and test scores. The book provides a comprehensive framework for achieving this: the READS curriculum, which stands for Read as a personal activity; Explore characteristics, history, and awards of creative works; Analyze structure and aesthetic features of creative works; Develop a literary-based product; and Score reading progress. Each of these five components is explained thoroughly, describing how school librarians can encourage students to read as individuals, in groups, and as school communities; support classroom teachers' instruction; and connect students to today's constantly evolving technologies. Used in combination with an inquiry/information-skills model, the READS curriculum enables school librarians to deliver a dynamic, balanced library program that addresses AASL's Standards for the 21st-Century Learner.

As the educational system continues to evolve, it is essential that educators of today devise innovative and strategic approaches to program development and assessment. The Handbook of Research on Program Development and Assessment Methodologies in K-20 Education is an essential reference source for the latest terminology and concepts related to program development. Featuring extensive coverage on a broad range of topics such as cognitive diagnostic assessments, self-directed learning, and digital education, this publication is ideally designed for educators, students, program designers, and librarians seeking current research on inventive strategies and practices to enhance education in the 21st century.

Honoring Identities argues that creating culturally responsive learning communities is a process which begins with building community, cultivating certain student and teacher dispositions, nurturing social justice, leveraging the power of talk and dialogic exchange, using Cultural Identity Literature (CIL) to build bridges and to normalize difference, and fostering a culture of civil discourse. Honoring Identities provides both theory and practice to advance the important mission of building culturally responsive mindsets and to ensure that all students feel like they have a place at the learning table. CIL reflects and honors the lives of all young people, and GREEN APPLE questions focus their reading on key facets of identity, multiplying the effectiveness of the reading experience. GREEN APPLE questions also provide a lens for anyone else wishing to select CIL. The questions not only illuminate different perspectives of a text but make readers aware that individual experiences color the reading of a text.

This textbook, for school library administration courses, is written by a professor who has taught this course at least once a year for the past twenty years. Technology is interwoven throughout the book and not listed as a separate chapter or book section. This is because the school librarian of today—and certainly the school librarian of tomorrow—is working in an environment of web resources, multimedia, mixed methods, and varying programs and services. Major chapters cover the various roles of the school librarian, curricular standards and guidelines, policies and procedures, budgeting, facilities, personnel, services, programming, ethics, advocacy, and evaluation. Sample policies, procedures, and plans make this book valuable to both new and experienced school librarians.

Requests for the removal, relocation, and restriction of books—also known as challenges—occur with some frequency in the United States. Book Banning in 21st-Century American Libraries, based on thirteen contemporary book challenge cases in schools and public libraries across the United States argues that understanding contemporary reading practices, especially interpretive strategies, is vital to understanding why people attempt to censor books in schools and public libraries. Previous research on censorship tends to focus on legal frameworks centered on Supreme Court cases, historical case studies, and bibliographies of texts that are targeted for removal or relocation and is often concerned with how censorship occurs. The current project, on the other hand, is focused on the why of censorship and posits that many censorship behaviors and practices, such as challenging books, are intimately tied to the how one understands the practice of reading and its effects on character development and behavior. It discusses reading as a social practice that has changed over time and encompasses different physical modalities and interpretive strategies. In order to understand why people challenge books, it presents a model of how the practice of reading is understood by challengers including “what it means” to read a text, and especially how one constructs the idea of “appropriate” reading materials. The book is based on three different kinds sources. The first consists of documents including requests for reconsideration and letters, obtained via Freedom of Information Act requests to governing bodies, produced in the course of challenge cases. Recordings of book challenge public hearings constitute the second source of data. Finally, the third source of data is interviews with challengers themselves. The book offers a model of the reading practices of challengers. It demonstrates that challengers are particularly influenced by what might be called a literal “common sense” orientation to text wherein there is little room for polysemic interpretation (multiple meanings for text). That is, the meaning of texts is always clear and there is only one avenue for interpretation. This common sense interpretive strategy is coupled with what Cathy Davidson calls “undisciplined imagination” wherein the reader is unable to maintain distance between the events in a text and his or her own response. These reading practices broaden our understanding of why people attempt to censor books in public institutions.