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 One board member said she had wanted the books to be withdrawn completely from the schools; another member said the board had never been asked to decide the issue, so the books’ withdrawal amounted to censorship.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.
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