I.A.M. Musing About…

Last week we discussed titles of books which were purported to be those considered by the BBC ‘100 books you ought to read if you were an informed person’. Since then, the source of that list has been questioned as being the BBC, and in fact may be some sort of list come up with by someone who thought to themselves ‘damn it, people ought to read these, you know!’

Whoever came up with the list — and go here for that post — there’s no denying that there’s some damned fine writing there. ‘Damned fine’ meaning: well written; full of imaginative plot points, rammed through with ‘thinky’ material for the reader’s consideration.

Would you think that it’s also a list with a whole bunch of seditious and banned titles? Oh yes; it really is!

25^th anniversary poster

This is “Freedom to Read Week” in the Dominion of Canada [see poster, right], and this 25^th year of the event is just as thought-provoking as one would expect it was when it was begun a quarter of a century ago.

Of the titles on the list of last week, here’s a list of the authors or titles that have come under the wrath of those desirous of limiting the ability of others in choosing what they pour into their brains through their eye-balls, and why (all information taken from the list available on the Freedom to Read site on this page: freedomtoread.ca/censorship_in_canada/challenged_books.asp):

• J.K. Rowling: Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
  • 2000 — The Durham (ON) Board of Education received numerous complaints about the immensely popular Harry Potter books being read in classrooms throughout the board’s schools. A school board official said that the complaints came from fundamentalist Christian parents.
  • Cause of objection — As is the case in at least 19 states of the U.S. and other parts of Canada, parents were concerned that Harry Potter is engaged in wizardry, witchcraft, and magic-making, and that these activities are inappropriate for young readers.
  • Update — After listening to the complaints, the administration decided to withdraw the books from classroom use but left them in school libraries where they would be available for book reports. One board member said she had wanted the books to be withdrawn completely from the schools; another member said the board had never been asked to decide the issue, so the books’ withdrawal amounted to censorship. Several months later, after a raucous public meeting, the board rescinded its decision to remove the books. However, in other jurisdictions teachers have been asked not to use the books in the classroom. This is said to have occurred in a school in Corner Brook (NF) and in Rockwood Public School in Pembroke (ON). In 2002, the Niagara (ON) District School Board turned down a parent’s request for the removal of the books from area schools. The parent said the books contained violence and promoted a religion (Wicca) which is against the law in Ontario schools. She said that she had not read the books.
• Harper Lee: To Kill a Mockingbird
  • 2002 — Black parents and teachers in Yarmouth, Digby, and Shelburne (NS) objected to this novel, Barbara Smucker’s Underground to Canada, and John Ball’s In the Heat of the Night. The director of education of the Tri-County school board ordered the withdrawal of the three books pending a ruling by the board, but his order was rescinded at a board meeting and the books were restored. In 1993, a school principal in Hamilton (ON) removed the novel from the core reading list for Grade 10 after a complaint from a parent. In 1991, a black community group called PRUDE (Pride of Race, Unity and Dignity through Education) asked Saint John (NB) School District 20 to withdraw this book and Huckleberry Finn from reading lists.
  • Cause of objection — The novel, which contains the word “nigger,” might cause black students to be mocked because of racial stereotyping.
    
• Philip Pullman: The Golden Compass (aka: His Dark Materials), The Subtle Knife, The Amber Spyglass
  • 2007 — After receiving a single complaint, the Halton (ON) Catholic District School Board ordered the withdrawal of these fantasy novels for young readers from the open shelves of libraries in elementary schools. The books were collected at library circulation desks, and students who wished to read the novels had to ask librarians for copies. The board also formed a committee to review the books. Within days, the Roman Catholic school board in Peterborough (ON) received two complaints about the novels and withdrew copies from school libraries. In Peterborough, school employees denied students access to the novels while the board set up a committee to review the novels. The Durham (ON) Catholic District School Board followed suit. The Calgary (AB) Catholic School District told employees to pull the novels from library shelves, not use the novels in classrooms and exclude the books from Scholastic book fairs. In Calgary, the school board also established a committee to review the novels.
  • Cause of objection — The stories, which are set in an alternative universe populated with talking animals, undermine belief in God and organized religion and promote atheism.
  • Update — In 2007, the Halton (ON) Catholic District School Board ignored the recommendation of its review committee and voted to ban the novels from schools. The board’s order proclaimed, “Philip Pullman’s trilogy of atheist ideology, carefully couched within the realm of fantasy for young readers, is in direct opposition to the mission statement and governing values of our board.” But a few weeks later, in 2008, the board of the Calgary (AB) Catholic School District decided to use The Golden Compass in schools. “There is no doubt that the text is harsh in terms of its language about organized religion and that it presents a consistently negative view of church, clergy and faith-based institutions; however, there are glimpses of light with opportunities for positive reflection,” the review document said. The board urged teachers, when using The Golden Compass, to use instruction guides to ensure “a carefully planned approach” and a Catholic focus.
• J.D. Salinger: Catcher in the Rye
  • This novel has been consistently challenged in Canadian schools for at least 15 years.
  • Cause of objection — “Foul language.”
• John Steinbeck: Of Mice and Men
  • 2000 — Terry Lewis, a member of the Reform party’s national executive council, complained about the use of this novel by Winnipeg’s River East School Division and called for the book’s removal from school reading lists. The novel has been targeted in other school jurisdictions across Canada as well.
  • Cause of objection — Lewis, who distributed 10,000 copies of a pamphlet arguing against the book, said that Steinbeck’s frequent use of “God,” “God-damned,” and “Jesus” in profane and blasphemous ways offended Christians and couldn’t possibly have any educational benefit.
  • Update — The River East School Division took no action. This objection and its disposition echoed an incident in Alberta in 1994, when a member of the legislature demanded that the novel be withdrawn from all high school reading lists in the province.
• Margaret Atwood: The Handmaid’s Tale
  • 2008 — In Toronto, a parent formally complained about the use of this dystopian novel in a Grade 12 English class at Lawrence Park Collegiate.
  • Cause of objection — The parent said that the novel’s “profane language,” anti-Christian overtones, “violence” and “sexual degradation” probably violated the district school policies that require students to show respect and tolerance to one another.
  • Update — In 2009, a review panel of the Toronto District School Board recommended that schools keep the novel in the curriculum in Grades 11 and 12.
• William Golding: Lord of the Flies
  • 1988 — The Race Relations Committee of the Toronto Board of Education recommended that the book be withdrawn from curriculum use in all Toronto high schools.
  • Cause of objection — The novel was seen to contain racial slurs.
  • Update — The board rejected the committee’s recommendation but circulated to all its schools the reasons for the parents’ objections that had led to the committee’s study of the book and asked its Committee on Bias in the Curriculum to suggest ways the book could be taught with sensitivity.

Remember, those are just the ones from last week’s list! The full list of contentious titles runs 30 pages!

Some aren’t too surprising (Catcher in the Rye, for instance), but some in that limited selection of titles are jaw-dropping. To attempt to ban To Kill a Mockingbird for the use of the word which forms the very foundation of the novel’s decrying of the mind-set behind those words’ use is the height of wilful ignorance! It’s akin to deciding you’ll never teach a class in WWII about the Holocaust for risk of inciting students into murdering anyone who’s Jewish, of the Romany Nation, a Homosexual, of Leftist politics, or possessing artistic tendencies!

Gad.

And we thought we had got so far…

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 26th, 2009 at 12:01 am and is filed under LIT-O-RAMA, rant, THINKINESS. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.