Keeping Up and Checking In

Parenting has never been simple, but today’s landscape presents a unique kind of challenge. Information moves faster than ever. Devices travel everywhere with our children. Social dynamics extend beyond school hallways into group chats, gaming platforms, and social media feeds that never turn off. For many parents, the question is no longer whether children will encounter difficult ideas, but when and how.

The first gathering did not begin with a formal plan or a polished strategy. It began in the halls of the Utah State Capitol, where a small group of people found themselves asking the same question at the same time.

What is happening to our books, and who is going to do something about it?

A Women’s History Month Reflection from the Freedom to Read Project

Every generation inherits the freedoms that previous generations fought to secure. When it comes to education, many of the rights we take for granted today—girls attending school, women enrolling in universities, students with disabilities receiving an education, and classrooms becoming more inclusive—exist because courageous women raised their voices and refused to accept the barriers placed before them.

A Practical Guide for Freedom to Read Advocates

When you’re fighting for the freedom to read, visibility matters.

Book challenges often start quietly… an email to a principal, a complaint filed with a district, a social media post tagging board members. But when those efforts escalate, or when a community organizes in response, it’s time to make sure the public record reflects what’s happening.

Public records requests are among the most powerful tools available to citizens. They replace rumor with documentation. They move conversations from speculation to evidence. They give communities the ability to see how decisions are actually made.

Across the country, a new legal argument is gaining traction in courtrooms and statehouses: the claim that public libraries (including school libraries) are simply a form of “government speech.” Under this theory, the government may curate library shelves however it chooses because the collection itself represents the government’s own message. More than twenty states have endorsed this position in a recent amicus brief, arguing that library decisions are no different from any other expression by the state.

Book censorship rarely arrives with a marching band and a press release. It shows up the way power often does: quietly, locally, and wrapped in the language of “concern.” One parent who “just has questions.” One social media post that turns into a pile-on. One school board meeting where a handful of people dominate the microphone while everyone else stays home, assuming someone else will handle it.

If you care about the freedom to read, you’re not alone.

Across the country, parents, educators, librarians, students, and neighbors are speaking up for books, not because it’s trendy or political, but because it’s personal. Because stories helped their child through grief. Because a novel made them feel seen for the first time. Because a library card once opened a door that nothing else could.

As a K-12 parent, nothing feels more natural than wanting to protect your child, to keep them safe from harm, distress, or things that feel too big for them to handle. But one area where that instinct often collides with reality is in how we think about the books available to our teenagers. Stories about sex, drugs, abuse, depression, grief, identity… these are exactly the kinds of subjects many parents hesitate to embrace. And yet, they are also the very topics that young people most desperately need to encounter in context, within the safe space of literature guided by thoughtful adults.

Libraries exist for a simple but profound reason: to ensure that everyone, regardless of income, background, belief, or zip code, has access to information, ideas, and stories. They are one of the few public institutions explicitly designed to expand opportunity. Their role in a healthy democracy is foundational, not optional. In fact, Benjamin Franklin once said, “These libraries have improved the general conversation of the Americans” and have “made the common tradesmen and farmers as intelligent as most gentlemen from other countries.”