Margaret Atwood pens 'suitable' story for teens after classics to be removed from Edmonton school libraries
Canadian author Margaret Atwood has penned a satirical short story “suitable” for teens, calling out a decision made by an Edmonton school board following a government directive to crack down on sexually explicit material for students.
The Edmonton Public School (EPSB) is slated to remove more than 200 books from its libraries, including Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. The 85-year-old, also known for contemporary classics such as Alias Grace and The Blind Assassin, shared her thoughts in a post on social media on Sunday .
“Here’s a piece of literature by me, suitable for seventeen-year-olds in Alberta schools, unlike — we are told — The Handmaid’s Tale,” Atwood quipped.
In 10 sentences, she tells the tale of John and Mary, two “very, very good children,” who “never picked their noses or had bowel movements or zits.”
John and Mary wed and have children “without ever having sex.” They also claim to be Godly people, but instead they practice “selfish rapacious capitalism, because they worshipped Ayn Rand,” writes Atwood.
Rand, a Russian-American writer, is known for objectivism, arguing “for the removal of any religious or political controls that hindered the pursuit of self-interest,” in her novels such as Atlas Shrugged and The Virtues of Selfishness, per BBC News Magazine .
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith called the move “vicious compliance,” suggesting the Edmonton board was going well beyond the intent of the provincial legislation.
Books expected to no longer be available for EPSB students in Kindergarten through Grade 12, featured on the list of “materials with explicit content,” include Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, and Alice Walker’s The Color Purple, CBC News and CTV News reported.
Writers on the list include Canadian author Alice Munro, contemporary author Colleen Hoover, Canadian novelist Margaret Laurence, and American author George R. R. Martin known for A Game of Thrones. The types of reading materials ranged from manga (Japanese comics), to graphic novels, short stories and novels.
Over the summer, the province introduced new standards for school libraries , which it said would “ensure school library materials are age-appropriate.”
“The new standards set clear expectations for school library materials with regard to sexual content and require school boards to implement policies to support these standards,” according to the federal government.
The order is set to take effect by Oct. 1.
On Tuesday, however, Alberta’s education minister Demetrios Nicolaides directed school boards to pause the order until further notice, The Canadian Press reported. In an email to school divisions and officials, he said they should hold off on any development or distribution of lists of books that are to be removed.
At a news conference on Aug. 29 , Smith spoke about the ministerial order that would see the EPSB, one of Alberta’s largest school boards, remove classics from its libraries. She said the point of the directive was to “take graphic, pornographic images out of elementary schools so that kids are not exposed to age-inappropriate material.”
If needed, she said, the province would “hold their hand through the process to identify” what is appropriate for students of all ages.
“We are trying to take sexually explicit content out of elementary schools that is inappropriate for me to show on the television news at night, and so it is inappropriate for seven year olds to see,” said Smith.
Smith, who has previously commented about how influential Rand’s writing has been in her life , was asked how she felt about the removal of Atlas Shrugged.
“Maybe we should make it mandatory reading in high school because it is a pretty influential book and it does articulate how important it is that we value our entrepreneurs and we value for enterprise economy,” she said, adding that it shouldn’t be read to kindergarteners but the concepts in the book were “absolutely appropriate” for older students.
Bridget Stirling was a EPSB trustee from 2015 to 2021 and served as vice-chair for part of that time as well as chair of the board’s policy committee.
She told National Post in an emailed statement that the list was a “mixed bag,” containing books that have won major Canadian and international prizes and “much of the body of work of Canada’s only recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature” Alice Munro.
“My personal feelings about books should not be the determining factor in whether they are available to students — those decisions should be made by people with expertise in developing school libraries and in accordance with what is developmentally appropriate for a given age group,” said Stirling.
She said it was understandable that school divisions that were left to interpret the policy for themselves decided to follow a “very strict interpretation.”
“Regardless of whether the premier approves personally of Ayn Rand’s books, for example, the content in books such as Atlas Shrugged clearly violates the rules given some fairly graphic descriptions of sexual conduct. When presented with a ministerial order, staff must apply the same standard across all materials, regardless of the books’ politics or staff’s personal ideological preferences. To do otherwise would be highly inappropriate. The same rules have to apply to both Ayn Rand and Margaret Atwood,” said Stirling.
She also noted that the list featured more “women authors than there are men, and many books are written by and/or include content about 2SLGBTQ+, Indigenous, Black, and racialized people.”
“In many cases, the sexual content is content related to sexual violence that is presented in a way that makes it very clear that it is describing abuse,” she said.
Nicolaides said in a statement posted on social media on Aug. 28 that Alberta Education would be reviewing the list. He reiterated that the order’s intent was to make sure “young kids are not are not exposed to sexually explicit books.”
“The (EPSB) list does not differentiate between students grade 10 and above and other, younger students,” he said.
“We have asked Edmonton Public to clarify why these books were selected to be pulled, and we will work with them to ensure the standards are accurately implemented. We did not provide this list to EPSB.”
Edmonton Public Schools confirmed to National Post over email that its board chair Julie Kusiek has reached out directly to Smith about compliance with the order.
In a statement shared with National Post, Kusiek said families and community members have raised numerous concerns to the Board of Trustees regarding the list of books that will be removed.
“We encourage anyone who has a concern about a book being removed, or the criteria for book removal set out in the Ministerial Order to contact the Minister of Education and Childcare directly,” she said.
Atwood took aim at the Alberta government in another post on X on Tuesday. She posted a link to a fall book list from a store in Canada, saying “not all of them have been banned by the Alberta gov’t. Yet.”
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