A study of teachers' perceptions concerning intellectual freedom and book selection and use in the elementary school is described in this paper. A questionnaire was sent to a random sample of 452 public elementary school classroom teachers in Minnesota. Surveys were completed by teachers for a response rate of 83%. Results indicated that: (1) 20% of the teachers never participated in selection of books for the school library; (2) 59% of the respondents taught at schools that had no written policy for book selection; (3) 83% of the teachers used trade books in the classroom; (4) 72% of the teachers read aloud to their classes daily; (5) 70% of the teachers would alter the text of an award-winning book if it contained language that might be offensive; (6) 60% of the teachers would not purchase for their classrooms favorably reviewed books that might be risky because of subject matter; (7) 74% of the teachers agreed with the practice of rewriting selections from children's books to satisfy reading difficulty demands; (8) 76% of the teachers strongly agreed or agreed that elementary school students should have First Amendment rights; (9) 3.4% of the teachers had at least one objection to trade books in the teacher's classroom; and (10) most of the teachers read children's books, and three out of four read reviews of new children's books. Findings suggest that information about challenges to books, as well as information about professional standards for dealing with challenges, must be given to teachers. (Seven tables of data are included.) (RS)