By Eric Hollister Williams, Communications & Marketing Advisor
Listen to the Hooray For Monday podcast.
Students come to Eileen Seligman’s library at Cardozo High School for books, but also for chess games, meetings, and a place to feel welcome. “The library is the heart of the school,” she says.
In this week’s Hooray For Monday, I speak with Eileen, a 2026–27 Inspired Teaching Fellow and the librarian at DC’s Cardozo High School, as we mark Banned Books Week. When I ask what students lose when books are removed, she’s clear: “The most critical thing that they lose is choice.”
That doesn’t mean every book is right for every student. Eileen considers age and developmental appropriateness when building a school library collection. She also takes concerns about a book seriously: read it, listen to the person raising the concern, and follow the school’s review process. And keep in mind that one family’s decision about what their child reads need not become a decision for everyone.
Eileen talks about books as mirrors, windows, and sliding glass doors. Educator Emily Style described curriculum as windows and mirrors in 1988. Rudine Sims Bishop later extended the metaphor to children’s books, adding sliding glass doors. Books can reflect a student’s life or introduce them to experiences they might not otherwise encounter. Either way, they can prompt questions worth exploring.
One thing to consider this week
Give students a choice of three or four age-appropriate books or short excerpts, selected with your school librarian, when possible. Invite them to browse before choosing one.
Then ask:
- What drew you to this book?
- What are you curious about?
- What might another reader notice or take from it?
Students don’t have to like the same book. The opportunity is to choose, think, and discuss. That practice can spark curiosity in all of us.
Resource of the Week
Banned Book Week 2026
- Banned Books Week (Coalition) was launched in 1982 in response to a sudden surge in the number of challenges to books in libraries, bookstores, and schools.
- PEN America is part of the Banned Books Week Coalition shining a spotlight on the freedom to read each year.
- American Library Association is a founding member of the Banned Books Week Coalition, an international alliance of diverse organizations joined by a commitment to increase awareness of the annual celebration of the freedom to read.
Hooray For Monday is an award-winning weekly publication of Center for Inspired Teaching, a social change nonprofit organization that champions the power of curiosity and is dedicated to transforming the school experience from compliance-based to engagement-based. Inspired Teaching provides transformative, improvisation-based professional learning for teachers that is 100% engaging – intellectually, emotionally, and physically.
