I was probably ten the first time I read The Agony of Alice, a book for young adults written in 1985 by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor. Alice McKinley, Naylor’s protagonist, was slightly older than me. She was in sixth grade, fumbling through adolescence without a female role model, wearing two shirts to hide her breasts because she didn’t know how to buy a bra, and agonizing over her yet-to-come first kiss.

Unlike Alice, I had female role models, but like many girls my age, I chose to catch my first glimpses of sex and puberty between the covers of weathered paperbacks, including those of Phyllis Reynolds Naylor and Judy Blume. I can’t imagine growing up without these books, which satisfied my adolescent curiosities and helped to foster my love of reading.

Unfortunately, if some had their way, books that depict curiosity about sexuality, like The Agony of Alice and others in Naylor’s Alice series, would be kept out of reach of children and adolescents. In 2000, a complaint was issued to the Toronto Public Library urging staff to deny access to Outrageously Alice, one of Naylor’s later books where Alice learns about sex.

Outrageously Alice is only one of more than 100 titles on the Challenged Books and Magazines List available at www.freedomtoread.ca, which was updated this month in time for Freedom to Read Week, which took place across Canada between February 20 and 26.

Freedom to Read Week is an annual event organized by the Freedom of Expression Committee of the Book and Periodical Council, which encourages Canadians to think about intellectual freedom and remember that the freedom to read should never be taken for granted. To celebrate reading and to create awareness of censorship issues, events were held across the country, including an evening with Amy Goodman in Edmonton and a discussion on censorship, advocacy journalism and the gay press in Toronto.

Over the last year, a number of high-profile debates over censorship have made headlines in the mainstream media, the most notable example probably being posthumous editing of both Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. But the truth is, we only hear about the censorship that makes headlines. There are hundreds of other examples each year where books are challenged and sometimes removed from classrooms, bookstores and libraries. Among the most-challenged books are those that depict female sexuality or same-sex relationships.

My own bookshelf holds many of these challenged titles, such as Lives of Girls and Women, Of Mice and Men, To Kill a Mockingbird, and The Handmaid’s Tale – to name only a few. These, and many others, are copies I purchased after eagerly digesting them in high-school classrooms or my city’s local library. As part of Freedom to Read Week, I can’t help but imagine what my life would be like if these titles had been pulled from the shelves of my library and restricted in my classrooms. These are titles that opened my eyes to injustices – racism, classism, sexism – and urged me to cultivate my own world view. They helped nudge me toward an interest and eventual involvement in progressive politics, and to dig deeper and learn more.

For these reasons, and many more, it is so important to me to read challenged books – not just during Freedom to Read Week, but all year long – and to continue spreading the word about censorship, in hopes that future generations will have the same access to books that thankfully I was not denied.

The Island by Gary Paulsen has always been a favorite.  I devoured Paulsen’s books when I was younger – for a while he was my favorite author and I read anything he wrote.  But the Island is the one that stuck with me most.  I loved the idea that Wil had found this quiet, secluded place where he could draw and write.  I loved that this is how he dealt with moving away from his friends and his home.  And I loved his quest to preserve his special place when the local news stations catches on to his exploits.  The Island is different from Hatchet - it’s not a wild survival adventure in the wilderness.  But it is just as fun to read, and I can’t recommend it enough to teens looking for something new and exciting.

The Agony of Alice by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor really captured my heart as a tween.  Alice’s life is dramatic – if not in reality then certainly in her head – and she speaks to every confused, scared, excited girl going through the craziness of growing-up.  Since her mother passed away, Alice has been concerned about finding a role model – her dad and older brother are no help, since they know nothing about girls – and she’s convinced a teacher at school can help her out.  But, alas, she is assigned to a different class, and all seems lost.  Much like Judy Blume’s Margaret, Alice deals with the trials of adolescence with a strong voice and a remarkable sense of humor.  With its many sequels, the Alice books are a series that girls can enjoy for years – and then pass on to their own daughters.

Wise Child by Monica Furlong was the book all the cool kids at school were reading.  Finally, I had to see what the buzz was about – of course, I was impressed.  This mystical adventure takes place in remote Scotland, where Wise Child has gone to live with a witch woman after having been abandoned by her parents.  Juniper teaches her all about magick, and Wise Child soon discovers that she has supernatural abilities of her own.  Wise Child is both a thrilling adventure and a heartwarming tale of hope, family, and destiny.  It’s prequel, Juniper, is also an amazing read.  As you might expect, it chronicles the early life of Wise Child’s teacher.  Anyone who likes a good fairytale or legend will be enraptured with Furlong’s wonderful stories.

The Face on the Milk Carton by Caroline B. Cooney has always stayed with me.  Janie Johnson’s plight is both surreal and completely possible, and I found this absolutely terrifying. While she’s always been a happy kid, and is currently satisfied with how things are going in her life, everything spins out of control when she sees her face in a missing persons ad on a milk carton.  Soon Janie discovers that her real name is Jenny, that she was kidnapped as a child, and her family isn’t really her family.  Both mysterious and dramatic,  The Face on the Milk Carton is not a book you will soon forget.  Thankfully there are three sequels, each book as riveting as the last.