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Freedom to Read: Challenged Books in Canada
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Freedom to Read: Challenged Books in Canada

Created by 49thShelf on February 24, 2012
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tagged: banned books, freedom to read week
To underline the relevance and importance of Freedom to Read Week and censorship issues, we have created a list of Canadian books that have been subject to censorship, banned or legally challenged in Canadian schools and libraries recently and in past decades. This list has been adapted from the Freedom to Read Week "List of Challenged Books and Magazines." You can find the full list at https://www.freedomtoread.ca/challenged-works/
When Everything Feels like the Movies

When Everything Feels like the Movies

by Raziel Reid
edition:Paperback
tagged : gay, lgbt
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Why it's on the list ...
After a national newspaper columnist wrote about the book (which she'd apparently just read the first 20 pages of) with the headline, "Wasted tax dollars on a values-void novel," a petition was started to strip the novel of its Governor-General's Award for Children's Literature (text). The petition failed and the book went far in the 2015 Canada Reads competition, so everything worked out in the end.
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This One Summer

This One Summer

by Mariko Tamaki, illustrated by Jillian Tamaki
edition:eBook
also available: Paperback
tagged : girls & women, friendship
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Why it's on the list ...
In 2016, a complaint from a parent of an elementary school student in Florida resulted in the book being removed from the school library, and also those of three local high schools.
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Betty

Betty

The Helen Betty Osborne Story
by David A. Robertson, illustrated by Scott B. Henderson
edition:Paperback
also available: eBook
tagged : social topics, prejudice & racism, aboriginal & indigenous, non-classifiable

Helen Betty Osborne, known as Betty to her closest friends and family, dreamed of becoming a teacher. She left home to attend residential school and later moved to The Pas, Manitoba, to attend high school. On November 13, 1971, Betty was abducted and brutally murdered by four young men. Initially met with silence and indifference, her tragic murder resonates loudly today. Betty represents one of almost 1,200 Indigenous women in Canada who have been murdered or gone missing. This is her story.

Bet …

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Essex County Volume 1: Tales From The Farm

Essex County Volume 1: Tales From The Farm

by Jeff Lemire
edition:Paperback
tagged : literary

Xeric Award-winning cartoonist Jeff Lemire (Lost Dogs) illustrates the tale of Lester, an orphaned 10-year-old who goes to live on his Uncle's farm. Their relationship grows increasingly strained and Lester befriends the town's gas station owner, and damaged former hockey star Jimmy Lebeuf. The two escape into a private fantasy world of super-heroes, alien invaders and good old-fashioned pond Hockey. Tales from the Farm is the first volume in a trilogy of graphic novels set in a fictionalized ve …

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The Young in One Another's Arms

The Young in One Another's Arms

by Jane Rule, introduction by Katherine V. Forrest
edition:Paperback
tagged : lesbian
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Why it's on the list ...
Although this Canadian novel had been published in 1977 and thousands of copies were available in Canada, a shipment addressed to Glad Day Bookshop in Toronto was detained by customs officers at the U.S. border in 1990. The shipment was eventually released.
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Hey Dad!

Hey Dad!

by Brian Doyle
edition:Paperback
also available: eBook
tagged : parents, adolescence
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Why it's on the list ...
In 1984, Doyle’s publisher received a letter from the principal of a rural Ontario school stating that copies of the book were being returned because they promoted negative views and did not contain the values of “positive citizenship.”
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A Jest of God

A Jest of God

by Margaret Laurence, afterword by Margaret Atwood
edition:Paperback
also available: Paperback
tagged : classics
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Why it's on the list ...
Challenged in 1987 with a number of other texts by a group of parents in Victoria County ON. The school board rejected the challenges. The parent group ran candidates for the school board during the 1989 municipal elections; all were defeated.
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Glory Days and Other Stories

Glory Days and Other Stories

by Gillian Chan
edition:Hardcover
also available: Paperback
tagged : school & education
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Why it's on the list ...
During the 2000 sexual assault trial of a former teacher in Langley BC, court heard evidence that the teacher had assigned a story, “Invisible Girl,” from this critically acclaimed collection to a Grade 4 and 5 class. The story deals with date rape. The school principal suggested to the board superintendent that the book be withdrawn from Langley schools. Book was withdrawn from elementary schools in the district, but is still available in secondary school libraries.
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