Burning To Read: Letters from My Students in support of Banned Books Week and the Freedom to Read Foundation

Abstract

Iam cognizant of how lucky I am. When I decided to teach Fahrenheit 451 to my Accelerated Juniors during spring semester at St. Johnsbury Academy, the biggest administrative roadblock I faced was finding two minutes in the English department head’s schedule to ask him face to face if I could. He said yes. And that was that. I did not have to fight with school boards, parents, or neighborhood committees. The books I handed out to my students may have been a little musty—ok, maybe a lot musty—but there were no “hells” and “damns” blacked out, no pages removed, and less than five minutes after Steve Jolliffe said “yes” I left the subterranean book room with an entire box of them at my disposal.