The Alberta government has officially revised its school book ban to state that written descriptions of sex are OK, but images and illustrations of sex are not.
Education Minister Demetrios Nicolaides said visual depictions have been the government’s main concern from the start.
He said images are easy to comprehend, while some young readers might not be able to fully understand written descriptions of sexual content.
And he said the revised order ensures that literary classics, some of which include sexual content, will stay on school library shelves.
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The change comes after Edmonton’s public school board put together a list of more than 200 titles it was going to take out of schools, including classics like Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale and Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, to comply with the initial ministerial order written in July.
The popular Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon and Game of Thrones books by George R.R. Martin — both of which were turned into award-winning television series — were also on the EPSB list.
Banning classics in Alberta brought worldwide attention, and even led Atwood herself to mock Premier Danielle Smith and her government by crafting a short story about a boy and girl who lived happily ever after practising rapacious capitalism while having kids without having sex.
— More to come…
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