Thoughts on culture, education, and having been a Canadian in the US
Random header image... Refresh for more!

Freedom to Read Week

ftr.jpg

It’s Freedom to Read Week in Canada this week. It’s interesting to take a look at their list of challenged books to see how many of Canadian literature’s most canonical texts are on that list, including Margaret Laurence’s The Diviners, Timothy Findley’s The Wars, and Alice Munro’s Lives of Girls and Women. Censorship at all levels is an ongoing issue. Just this past year, as discussed on this blog, there was a challenge to the presence of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale on the high school curriculum in Ontario.

It’s important for us all to speak out against such challenges when they occur, but also to pay attention to the quieter forms of censorship such as when certain books are simply not ordered for school libraries (perhaps we should start protesting when certain books aren’t on the shelves!) or even when teachers avoid putting particular books on the syllabus because they don’t feel equipped (or paid enough) to handle the reactions that might ensue.

If you start to look through the documented cases of people trying to have particular books pulled from the shelves, you might find your anger and disbelief occasionally turn to laughter. As I was reading through a list of such cases that I found on the Freedom to Read website, I came across this entry:

Gill, John (ed.). New American and Canadian Poetry.

1994—The school board in Sechelt (BC), responding to a parental complaint, removed

this book from student use in Chatelech Secondary School.

Cause of objection—Anthology was said to present an anti-establishment view and to

present sex and four-letter words in a positive light.

Update—The school board decided, following a review, that the book should remain in

the library. The sole copy has since been stolen and not replaced.

These complaints all sound ridiculous to most people and it’s easy to dismiss them. But we also cannot be complacent. Our authors deserve to be defended from such actions by all of us. So, the next time you hear of a complaint like this in your town, make sure to call up the school board or library to voice your support for keeping those works on the shelves. And, maybe plan on stopping by the library at a later date just to make sure that book hasn’t mysteriously disappeared.

4 comments

1 San Diego Wedding { 02.24.09 at 9:10 pm }

Great post. Not only is this a problem with Canadian literature, but it’s a problem with all literature. The greatest teachers welcome a good discussion no matter the subject or nature of the argument. Teacher’s who avoid using books because of their insecurities shouldn’t be teaching at all.

2 FM { 04.12.09 at 12:44 pm }

This is a great post and I thinks this is a big problem with literature.

3 Desktop Stock Ticker { 04.14.09 at 3:46 pm }

Great post! It brings back memories from Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury…

4 Translation { 09.07.09 at 12:23 pm }

Thanks – I have been researching issues along these lines especially with translated books. This post has been a big help.