Bonjour à tous! Nous avons collaboré avec l’équipe du mois de la liberté de lire et nous sommes ravis d’annoncer que le thème du club de lecture de février est : Les livres interdits! Le sondage pour choisir le livre du mois sera ouvert jusqu’au 1er février, date à laquelle nous annoncerons le gagnant. Comme toujours, nous tenons également à préciser qu’AESISSA n’a pas lu ce livre au préalable. Nous ne pouvons pas nous porter garants de son contenu ou de sa qualité, mais seulement de l’intérêt qu’il suscite. Nous avons également quelques informations sur ces livres et sur la façon dont ils ont été contestés!
Hello everyone! We have collaborated with the Freedom to Read Month team and are excited to announce that the theme for February’s book club is: Banned books! The poll to decide on this month’s book will be open until February 1, when we will announce the winner. As always, we would also like to state that AESISSA has not read this book beforehand. We cannot vouch for any specific content or quality, just that there was interest in reading it. We also have some information on these books and how they were challenged!
Formerly titled George, this youth novel follows the story of fourth-grader George, who although perceived as a
boy knows she is a girl named Melissa. The book is hailed as an inspiring story that portrays a transgender protagonist, and encourages young readers to embrace their true selves. Although there is no popular record of George being challenged in Canada, it has endured many challenges in the United States, where it saw many petitions to have it removed from library collections, notably in 2017 when the Wichita (Kansas) school system systematically excluded it from library collections.
This story follows the young Lyra Belacqua, and her daemon Pantalaimon, who become ensnared in a world of conflict and deceit. To save a friend, they travel North into a world where armored bears and witch clans battle, impacting their world more than they ever realized. The Golden Compass was challenged in 2007 in the Halton Catholic District School Board (Ontario) along with The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass to be removed from all schools due to the atheist themes present in the books
The Handmaid’s Tale – either a dystopian novel, science fiction work, or warning to the future – follows the perilous story of Offred, and how she navigates living in a totalitarian theocracy that has taken control of the present-day United States. Although The Handmaid’s Tale has received many literary awards, it is no stranger to challenges, and is targeted for it’s “profane language,” and themes of violence, anti-Christianity, and sexual degradation. Such was the case in Toronto (ON) in 2008 when a parent made a formal complaint to the Lawrence Park Collegiate that the book was being read in a Grade 12 English class.
This winner of the 2008 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize tells the story of Aminata Diallo who is captured by slave traders in her home of Bayo, Niger, and brought to South Carolina by slave traders. It was challenged and physically burned in the Netherlands due to the use of the N-word in the title.
This book, suggested for readers 9 and up, follows young Julilly’s escape from enslavement on a Southern plantation to Canada via the Underground Railroad. In 2002, a group of Black Canadians challenged Smucker’s book in the Tri-County District School Board (Nova Scotia), hoping to remove it from classrooms along with John Ball’s In the Heat of the Night and Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. They challenged the books for their portrayal of Black people, and their use of the N-word.
Set in Vancouver (B.C) at the end of the Vietnamese War, this novel follows Ruth as she cares for the people staying in her boarding house. The book focuses on communities and how people’s differences bring them together, and is considered to be one of the first to depict lesbians in a positive light. In 1990, this book was seized by Canadian customs as it made its way from the United States to the Glad Day Bookshop in Toronto (ON).
This literary staple documents a racial and conscientious crisis in the small Southern town of Maycomb (Alabama) during the Great Depression, through the eyes of 8-year-old Scout. In 1991, Lee’s novel was challenged in Saint John (N.B) by the African-Canadian organization PRUDE (Pride of Race, Unity, and Dignity through Education) for its portrayal of racial minorities along with Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
AÉSISSA 