Atwood novel about censorship faces ban

The Toronto School Board is reviewing a formal complaint made by Robert Edwards that the themes of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale "probably violate the Toronto board’s policies of respect and tolerance," reports the Edmonton Journal. Edwards, whose 17-year-old son was assigned the internationally renowned 1985 dystopian novel for Grade 12 English, argues that "while the futuristic theme of the book is acceptable, its focus on ’...sex, brutal situations, murder, prostitution’ is not."  Russell Morton Brown, a retired University of Toronto English professor, dismisses the fuss, noting high school students are the "better for reading it" and that much of the criticism that it’s anti-Christian or anti-Muslim miss the point: "It’s really anti-fundamentalism."

The Toronto Star