Asha’s Mums. Jacob’s New Dress. Concerned Christian parents have often worked hard to keep controversial titles like these ones off school and public library shelves.
Others, however, have fought with equal determination to include them in library collections. As Richard Beaudry, former president of the Canadian School Libraries, has explained:
“I’m worried that book ban movements are shutting down important conversations, rather than encouraging diversity of thought and exposing kids to new experiences.”
In Ontario, however, we’ve just seen a curious instance of anything but “diversity of thought.” In Mississauga’s Peel School District, most books published before 2008 were recently removed from school library shelves – unless they could be proven to be “accurate, relevant to the student population, inclusive, not harmful, and support[ing] the current curriculum.” It’s easy to imagine most older books failing the test, considering the worldview of those judging what is “accurate” and “relevant.”
As Jonathon Van Maren has commented, “Progressive educators seem consistently stunned to discover that the writers of the past did not hold the values of the present” – and they often seem determined to shield their students from this reality.
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