Banned Books discussion

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toront...

Yeah, and the excuses being made by the anonymous "spokesmonsters" are absolutely vile.

In situations like this, school librarians are usually following directives in a way where they won't be accused of being subjective themselves. I imagine they were worried about being the deciding factor in which books qualified under the new directive and decided it was safest to just remove anything where the information would be outdated from an inclusivity standpoint. It's unfortunate, and I hope they receive the support they actually need from the group quoted in this article, rather than the blame for the directive they were handed down.

Hannah wrote: "In situations like this, school librarians are usually following directives in a way where they won't be accused of being subjective themselves. I imagine they were worried about being the deciding..."

The librarians claim they received no directives from the provincial government and the education minister is saying that the school board and the librarians acted on their own. I guess that the truth probably lies somewhere in the middle, that there is likely ample blame on both sides and the the real losers here are students.

They do explain their process but I'm wary of their inclusivity categories because I feel it's important to read viewpoints different from your own and read historical books. No one wants to write or publish historical fiction anymore. The woke police will cancel it or the right-wing extremist special interest parent groups and certain governors will censor it. Same thing, really.

They say The Diary of a Young Girl
and the Harry Potter books will remain.

I'm using directive in a different sense than they are, I think. The article mentions that all of the book pulling was a result of a new rule handed down, so that's what I was talking about by saying directive. They're using the word directive to say they had no guidance on what the rule meant, basically. I do agree this isn't a great system, of course, but I suspect that's where the issue lies.

Historical fiction is still widely published. I'm not sure if you're talking about books written in a previous time period or books written now with a differently timed setting, but both are still published by all major publishers. In the U.S., at least; I can't speak to Canadian publishers. But the concern expressed in this article is that first and second-hand tellings will be replaced with stories that have gone through more and more filters, or that aren't being told at all. That is a concern.

Some curation will always be necessary, but hopefully they can find a balance. I suspect by providing funding to the school for the library and assuring the librarians they'll be supported through this process, it can be improved.

This makes me want to throw up.

Kelly H. (Maybedog) wrote: "This makes me want to throw up."

Yeah me too, and is a sign of total laziness and then making excuses after being called out by both the public and also the province (not that I agree with Doug Ford and Stephen Lecce about most things, but I do know that Lecce has not been in any way demanding whole scale and al encompassing book bans and the like and that it looks like the school board just thought it was easier to simply get rid of ALL books prior to a certain date).