What's at stake if Alberta removes certain books from its school libraries?
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Last week, the government of Alberta revealed plans to introduce new guidelines that will determine what books will be allowed on the shelves of school libraries across the province.
The province's education minister, Demetrios Nicolaides, invited Albertans to take part in an online survey to help shape the new rules that will take effect this fall.
The move comes after Nicolaides said he received complaints from parents about four particular books that concerned them: Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe, Fun Home by Alison Bechdel, Blankets by Craig Thompson, and Flamer by Mike Curato. Three out of four of these discuss 2SLGBTQ+ themes, leading many advocates to worry that queer literature would be unfairly targeted under the new guidelines.
Today on Commotion, guest host Amil Niazi speaks with Mel Woods, senior editor at Xtra Magazine, and Laura Winton, president of the Library Association of Alberta, to discuss what's at stake for Alberta children and libraries.
We've included some highlights below, edited for length and clarity. For the full discussion, listen and follow Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud on your favourite podcast player.
WATCH | Today's episode on YouTube:
Amil: Mel, there's 2,200 schools across Alberta. Those books that [Nicolaides] mentioned only appear in 58 schools, and those books are not new books. So why do you think this particular concern is happening right now?
Mel: Yeah, I think that's the biggest thing that we have to be really clear about with this, is that while the Alberta government has been framing this announcement as some discovery of this lewd material that's been unearthed, the only new thing here is the Alberta government's decision to care about this right now.
And we have to look at the larger political context at play here. Nicolaides was saying that he heard from concerned parents. Reporting from the Investigative Journalism Foundation last week showed that those concerned parents were the Christian advocacy group, Action4Canada, which was involved in the Freedom Convoy. And also played a huge role in getting the school pronoun policies in both Saskatchewan introduced and New Brunswick, and the gender-affirming care attacks that the Alberta government's already taken.
So this doesn't come in a vacuum. It's not just some genuinely, earnestly concerned parents calling up the government and saying, "Get these books out of libraries." There are coordinated movements and efforts to target these books in specific. These books on this list have been targeted in the States before. There are lists of these books that go around within these types of organizations, and they target specific governments who might seem willing to help them with those campaigns.
And we look at the larger political context of what's happening in Alberta right now. [Premier] Danielle Smith and her government are looking at these separatist folks to the further right, to the further socially conservative, and are worried about their base fracturing…. These groups and organizations are coming to governments with intent to get these sorts of policies introduced, and to stoke a culture war, and to stoke a moral panic.
We can never talk about these things and take what they're saying at face value and be like, "Oh, some genuinely concerned parents. We're just so worried about these lewd books." No, there are coordinated email writing campaigns. There are very influential political actors involved here, and that's an important context to have.
Amil: Laura, how would you have preferred the province initiate a discussion like this? Rather than just jumping to the survey, is there something the Library Association would have preferred to see first?
Laura: Yeah, absolutely. I think, first and foremost, we would have loved a conversation — at least a heads up. The Library Association of Alberta wasn't contacted. None of the public school boards were contacted as well. So this came as a total surprise to all of us. If the government had concerns about material that was in school libraries, it seems most appropriate to me that they would have approached school boards, potentially approached the Library Association of Alberta to get a bit more information on what the current processes look like, and then conversations could happen from there.
Amil: So the books that we're talking about include Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe, Fun Home by Alison Bechdel, and Flamer by Mike Curato, all of which discuss and depict 2SLGBTQ+ relationships…. The government's position is that certain books have no place in school libraries. What is the case for keeping books like the ones I mentioned on the shelves?
Laura: It's worth noting that these are all award-winning graphic novels. These have been reviewed in major publications. Here's a quote from Publishers Weekly about Gender Queer: "This heartfelt graphic memoir relates with sometimes playful honesty the experience of growing up non-gender-conforming. It's sure to spark valuable discussions at home and in classrooms."
So this material is intended to be put in front of children. One of the books, Blankets, I studied in library school years ago in a children's literature class. And what we were talking about in that class was very specifically, "How do we use this as material to help children understand their experiences?" So librarians know how to do this. We're thinking carefully about it. And there is consensus from experts on these books. This is not, as the minister has said, equivalent to a Hustler magazine. This is an award-winning text.
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