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Ken McGoogan, books editor of the Calgary Herald, was nominated by a number of Calgary teachers to receive the Sandpiper/Steinbeck Award in 1996. In their letter of nomination, they said,

1995-96 seems to be the year of Sense and Sensibility, attributes Ken McGoogan brings to the all important issue of Freedom to Read.

Ken can sense and alert us to the hot points (the actions of prominent MLAs such as Stockwell Day and Halvor Johnson, siding with would-be book banners; the removal of a poetry anthology which included works of Margaret Atwood, Irving Layton and George Bowering from a high school in B.C.; censorship of gay and lesbian material by special-interest groups in Hamilton and B.C.'s Fraser Valley; and the impounding of books by Canada Customs).

And he has the sensibility not to shout, bang the table or bring in the placards, but to encourage us to support the quiet revolution - the Steinbeck Resistance, the 'guerrilla readers'; the symposium on the Economics of Censorship, the Calgary Board of Education's and Catholic Board of Education's Freedom to Read in the Schools Day (parts of the Freedom to Read Week program). Ken publicly thanks those who take the time and trouble to speak out and he listens to and publicizes what our young people have to say.

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Most recent update: Sat Feb 20 11:12:52 MST 2010