Centerville & Irvington Virtual Opportunities - Freedom to Read Book Reviews and Lists
Help promote the freedom to read before this year's Banned Books Week by reviewing a banned book or making a book list that celebrates the freedom to read!
How to do it:
Find a book that has been challenged or banned in the US. You can do so by checking out the PEN America index, or searching for your favorite title to see if it's been challenged. You can also learn more about why some books are being banned (for example, a large percentage are books with BIPOC or LGBTQ+ characters) on the ALA website. Please only read what you're comfortable with. If you have any questions, you can contact a librarian to see if one of your favorite books has been challenged.
Then, use our online catalog to find books to read and, once finished, write a book review for our site. You can also create customized book lists focusing on banned or challenged books. HERE is a link to a list made in 2022 by our staff. Links to reviews and book lists should be sent to our librarians for review. You might even have yours published on the library website!
In order to volunteer as a Virtual Book Reviewer, you must meet the following requirements.
Requirements
- You must create an account on our library catalog page: https://aclibrary.bibliocommons.com/
- You must be 13 years old or older and
- You must be 17 years old or younger
- Book lists you write need to contain at least 10 titles and include comments about each title on the list
- Book reviews you write must be at least 100 words, written by you, and include some information about the book’s plot, as well as what you thought of the book/story/characters/setting etc.
- Both book reviews and book lists must be made public in order to share them.
Once you're signed up for this program email us using the “Contact” tab. Please include the name of the book or book list you’ve created along with the URL of the review or list so the librarian can review it and award you volunteer hours.
You can learn about our new catalog and creating book lists using this tutorial about creating lists.
Additional information on how to create a book review can be found here: https://help.bibliocommons.com/025ug/010comments/ You can find additional information about adding a book list here: https://help.bibliocommons.com/030lists/005creating-lists/
