Angry as Hell
There are days I think of quitting writing this blog, but only because some of the things I write about make me so angry that I suspect it is all bad for my health, mental and physical. Being angry is not good for one.
This post will be about such a thing.
The headline in my paper London Free Press this morning:
City high school library’s 10,000-volume ‘book purge’ sparks censorship debate
Here are the facts presented in the story, all of them coming from Larry Farquharson, who just resigned as the teacher-librarian at London’s H.B. Beal Secondary School. He says in the Freeps story that ‘It was untenable to stay’.
The library there once held 18,000 books, the largest number in the Thames Valley School District. It is now home to 8,300.
Here are the titles mentioned in the story which were eliminated. All of the info below comes from the Freeps story.
The purged books included 128 war history titles with another 15 from the library’s reference section.
They covered such topics the War of 1812, the first and second world wars – including seven books documenting Canada’s contributions – trench warfare and the Holocaust, including all but one of the school’s copies of The Diary of Anne Frank.
A copy of The Gallant Hussars also was removed. It’s a history of London’s First Hussars Regiment from 1856 to 2004.
Copies of works of fiction such as the Harry Potter novels, Lord of the Flies and Wuthering Heights were removed, as were books by such luminaries as John Steinbeck, Lucy Maud Montgomery and Kurt Vonnegut.
Needless to say, with nearly 10k eliminations, that is not a complete list.
Another quote from the Freeps story.
A Thames Valley document dated 2024-25 and titled “inclusive library collection revitalization project,” a copy of which was obtained by The Free Press, notes the London-based board has several requirements for choosing library resources.
The “revitalization project,” it states, “aims to revitalize the collections of (Thames Valley) schools to ensure they are culturally responsive, reflect our diverse student population and contain accurate and up-to-date information.”
It adds: “The project will focus on deselecting texts with harmful images, messaging, slurs, and racial epithets to facilitate the safety and well-being of all students.”
Thames Valley officials did not reply to a Free Press request for comment on the Beal library decisions or whether there are similar efforts at other schools across the board.
Of course they did not reply. And I have to point out that the headline on the Freeps story is a lie. There is no ‘debate’ here, the assholes at Beal simply unilaterally removed the books. They did not consult the public. That is not how these people operate. Nor did they move the books on so others could read them. There are many used book stores in London, not to mention a yearly used book fair at Centennial Hall, that would have been happy to have them. No, these books are not fit for anyone to read.
The brave Mr. Farquharson has provided us with a photo to show what happened to those nearly 10,000 books. It’s below, copied from the Freeps story and credited to him. Those books are gone, pulped into oblivion, as the assholes wished. This all started a year ago, according to Farquharson. The debate never happened.
As I said, so angry that my hands are shaking as I type. This is education in the 21st century.
But Thames Valley students are safe from Kurt Vonnegut.