Queen’s University is taking part in Freedom to Read Week with a series of readings at Speaker’s Corner in Stauffer Library.

Freedom to Read Week is an annual event that encourages Canadians to think about intellectual freedom, which is guaranteed them under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It is a project of the Book and Periodical Council, the umbrella organization for associations involved in the writing and editing, publishing and manufacturing, distribution, and selling and lending of books and periodicals.

At the Queen’s event members of the community are able to listen to passages from banned and challenged books as they are read by special guests, including Principal Daniel Woolf, who took part on Tuesday. Books read included To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Alice Munro's Lives of Girls and Women and Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, while others spoke on the continuing constraints on freedoms.

The event will continue on Wednesday and Thursday from 12:30-1:30 pm. On Thursday, Tsvi Kahana (Faculty of Law) will lead a discussion on “when freedoms collide.”  

For more information about Freedom to Read, go to freedomtoread.ca.