“We can stay up late, swapping manly stories, and in the morning, I’m making waffles!”
Are you hearing that in Donkey’s voice? I’ve probably taken for granted that Eddie Murphy’s Shrek character is a standard reference for many of us approaching middle age. But in a parallel, fictional timeline I almost fell into, talking donkey stories have been banned.
A few years after Shrek hit theatres, I worked in the children’s department at my hometown’s public library, leading storytimes as part of the summer reading club. One morning, my coworker came into the back office holding a small, illustrated library book. A patron had told her it was inappropriate, she said, and that the book should be removed from the shelves. The visiting mother didn’t want her children exposed to talking animals of any kind, even pretend ones. More than that, she wanted no other children to be able to read those stories, either.
(I’m fuzzy on the details of why she felt this way, but it might have had something to do with the biblical stories of the Garden of Eden and its demonic serpent, or the story of Balaam’s donkey in the Book of Numbers. Back in the Shrek era, I could understand why talking donkeys would be top of mind—but go find that donkey story: the donkey comes out of it looking pretty good!)
Our library chose not to remove talking animals from its shelves. (Catastrophe averted.) My coworkers and I found the situation very amusing. But to my young mind, it also illustrated a much larger issue: Who wants to ban certain stories, and why? Who decides which stories are told, and whose stories are suppressed?
Two decades later, the answers are clearer to me—and much more serious. Book bans and challenges to reading material in libraries and schools are on the rise in North America. Data from the Canadian Federation of Library Associations (CFLA) show that challenges in both Canada and the U.S. tripled between 2019 and 2023.
What’s most disturbing is this: almost 50 per cent of the 2023 book challenges were related to LGBTQ+ materials, up from only 9.8 per cent in 2019. These materials include non-fiction titles about gender identity or sexuality, as well as fictional stories featuring queer or trans characters.
It isn’t hard to see who wants to stop you and me from reading about queer people: the far right. Try-hard fascists and their enablers are causing Canadian librarians a headache. It’s all happening in tandem with the incandescent Hulk Hogan-ization of America, where you can’t even write the word woman and get federal research funding.
That’s a true story. In February, the U.S. National Science Foundation received an executive order to halt its grant funding, slash up to half its workforce, and scrub a long list of commonly used words from its database of grants. Restricted terms include disability, discrimination, equality, gender, Indigenous community, LGBT, minority, racism, and women. You read that correctly: if your research mentions Indigenous people or women in 2025, it could be cancelled—if Trump gets his way.
The fascists banning terms like equality are not serious people. But in their infantile quest to destroy democracy, Donald Trump and his all-American oligarchy (plus a famous South African) are repeating the actions of the 1933 Nazis who burned piles of trans- and queer-related books in the streets. Today’s rise in book challenges mirrors a similar digital book-burning that’s underway as U.S. agencies are ordered to erase public information about the subjects they fear most: COVID-19, climate change, and groups of people they find undesirable or inconvenient. That seems to be anyone who isn’t an able-bodied, straight, white man.
The bans and book challenges are one front in a culture war against pluralism—the idea that more than one kind of person, belief, culture, or source of authority can coexist. Adopting a philosophy of pluralism leads to things like the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the freedom to read (or not to read) the books you like.
At a time when everything seems like a mess, Haida Gwaii has been giving me hope. The most heartwarming bit of international politics lately has been the signing of the Chiixuujin | Chaaw Kaawga Big Tide (Low Water) Haida Title Lands Agreement by leaders from Canada and the Haida Nation. This achievement represents decades of work, building trust across cultures and telling stories about what it means to be Canadian or Haida—and how we can grow mutual respect.
Haida Gwaii is offering the world an example of what coexistence and respect can look like. Without the freedom to read, though, we would lose the freedom to learn about one another through stories, songs, and culture of all kinds. Canadians and Haida Gwaiians alike would lose the ability to truly move forward together.
February 23 to March 1 marks Canada’s Freedom to Read Week, which is a time to remember our commitment to intellectual freedom. This year, as book bans rise alongside attacks on minority groups, the freedom to read means standing in solidarity with our trans and queer friends and community members.
As for me, someone with a lifelong chronic illness, the fascists can pry my freedom to read out of my cold, disabled hands.
Recommended reading: On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder (available in both book and graphic novel formats)
After you celebrate your freedom to read at VIRL, come visit us at Which 3rd Avenue Books. Contact us at [email protected].