Challenges to books in libraries and schools are common, and restrictions and removals are not a new occurrence in Canada, but there has never been any previous public awareness of restrictions imposed on books that are part of the FoR program.
In a typical year at the Forest of Reading, Canada’s largest K-12 reading festival, some 15,000 children flock to the Harbourfront Centre in Toronto to vote on – and meet – the authors they love best, in an event that turns writers into “rock stars” for three days each May.
Committees read dozens if not hundreds of books over the summer and whittle the list down to the festival nominees. After returning to school in the fall, more than 270,000 students will spend the year reading them before they vote in the spring. The event culminates in Toronto – with satellite events held throughout towns across Ontario.