There were myriad lessons to be learned as Canadians returned to school this week, not all of them directed toward the students themselves.
The Alberta government was schooled on the consequences of making bad decisions. The province ordering sexually explicit books removed from school libraries led to the Edmonton Public School Board (EPSB) banning more than 200 books – a list that was leaked to great outrage, including from one of the listed authors, Margaret Atwood.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith accused the EPSB of “vicious compliance.” But with opposition building – Ms. Atwood’s voice acting as a megaphone of wry sanity – Alberta Education and Childcare Minister Demetrios Nicolaides paused the order.
In case Ms. Smith, Mr. Nicolaides, et al are looking for something to do during that pause to further educate themselves on a wide range of topics, I have a suggestion: Read a book.
There’s a whole list to choose from, courtesy of the EPSB.
It’s a little on the nose, but I begin with this recommendation: Brave New World, in which Aldous Huxley imagines a future dystopia of class-divided totalitarianism and extreme reliance on technology. It offers a fine jumping-off point to discuss AI – and bad governance.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says Edmonton’s public school board has gone over the top in complying with new rules banning books with sexual content. Smith says the school listed books the policy had no intention of targeting.
The Canadian Press
Teenagers hear a lot about Afghanistan on the news (or on TikTok): war, fundamentalist authoritarianism, misogynistic policies, and now a deadly earthquake. In A Thousand Splendid Suns, Khaled Hosseini’s gorgeous writing stirs care about the people living this hell, girls and women in particular – while providing context about the country’s history. And yet it was to be kept from Edmonton students. Because . . . sex?
In Alice Munro, who has several books on this list, readers can find a perfect sentence, again and again – as well as a moral/literary dilemma having to do with the author’s behaviour in real life, regarding the sexual abuse of her daughter by Ms. Munro’s second husband. This offers not just an opportunity to discuss child sexual abuse – which should definitely be addressed in classrooms – but also the question of the artist vs. the art.
Other books on the EPSB’s list dealing with domestic and sexual violence include Alice Walker’s Pulitzer Prize-winning The Color Purple and Maya Angelou’s stunning memoir I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Both illustrate racism and illuminate the early 20th-century Black experience in the U.S. South, including the continuing impact of slavery.
The great Canadian author Margaret Laurence made the list multiple times, including with her classic The Diviners. This was the first novel I recall reading as a young person that truly humanized an older woman, that made me cheer and weep for her, and realize that one day I would be her, or like her, should I be so lucky. In the afterword to the edition on my shelf, another great Canadian novelist Timothy Findley addressed critics who banned the book or called for its censorship – school boards and the church in particular. This was “crazy,” Mr. Findley wrote, as these institutions “should have a vested interest in honesty.”
What we are getting in Alberta is a not-honest response to a not-honest decree. In order to keep books that make the Smith government uncomfortable out of school libraries (such as Maia Kobabe’s Gender Queer and Mike Curato’s Flamer, which to be clear should not be banned either), a whole bunch of classics are being tossed out with the bathwater.
Alberta pauses ban on school library books with sexually explicit content
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Not everything on this shameful list is a classic. Colleen Hoover is hardly an example of literary greatness. But if she gets young people reading, so what?
Also on this list is a Canadian sensation, Carley Fortune’s Meet Me at the Lake. Ms. Fortune, a former Globe and Mail journalist, has become a New York Times bestselling novelist of a romance juggernaut franchise. Look, aspiring Canadian authors: this could be you!
And to return to the realm of on-the-nose: in The Handmaid’s Tale, readers learn about an authoritarian dystopia where women are not just ruled by men, but involuntarily used by their masters for procreation.
Ms. Atwood, no stranger to having her books banned, wrote on her Substack that she was not sure what motivated the Edmonton school board’s decision. Was it actually the sex, “even though it’s not sexy sex?”
Is the concern that young people are going to learn about sex from a book? Please. They’ve got other ways, beginning with their parent-purchased cellphones.
There are lessons to be learned from the likes of K-Pop Demon Hunters and whatever else kids are watching on Netflix, too. But books offer a personal, elongated and intimate immersion into another world. It’s often challenging, but it can be so rewarding.
To quote from Mr. Findley again: “Difficult is exhilarating.” Here’s something that’s not difficult to understand: censorship is harmful. Books themselves? Exhilarating – and educational.
