Core Values
During National Library Week 2022, ALA launched Unite Against Book Bans, a national grassroots campaign to protect every reader’s freedom to read. The campaign's urgency is clear; those who would ban books from schools, public libraries, or even bookstores are escalating their efforts to remove books they don’t like. Yet it's important to shift the lens away from the book banners and focus on those who champion the importance and right to read widely, and why we need to tell and hear the stories that speak to the range of human experience.
Join our superstar panel--including award-winning young adult author Jason Reynolds, library icon and author Nancy Pearl, and the amazing library ambassadors from Bell High School in Washington, DC, as they make the case for defending the right to read and the joy in claiming that right.
The session will include a campaign update and actionable steps for in-person and virtual participants to #UniteAgainstBookBans and bring the campaign to their communities.
.jpg "Deborah Caldwell-Stone, J.D. photo")
Deborah Caldwell-Stone, J.D.
Director
ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom
Megan Murray Cusick, MLIS
Deputy Director, State Advocacy, ALA Public Policy & Advocacy
American Library Association
Jason Reynolds
Award-winning Author & 2020–2022 National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature
.jpg "Nancy Pearl photo")
Nancy Pearl
Library Icon and Author