Each fall we celebrate the “Freedom to Read.” At the Newberg Public Library we celebrate that you have the choice to read what you want to read.
And if you are a parent, you get to choose what your child reads if you choose to guide your child’s reading choices. The library has something for everyone — something you like and something you don’t. Something you agree with and something you don’t. Something that fits your personal or family values and something that doesn’t. You can even start a book, decide you don’t like it, and not finish it. It’s your choice, just as others also have that choice. What a beautiful freedom it is to read.
Did you know the first recorded book banning on this continent was in 1637? The “New English Canaan,” by Thomas Morton was banned by the Puritan government for a “harsh and heretical critique of Puritan customs and power structures.” It would be over 150 years before the government of the United States would protect the freedom to read in the First Amendment by allowing individuals to speak, publish, read and view what they choose.