Dozens of Alberta school divisions banned books to comply with provincial order

Brett McKay, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Investigative Journalism Foundation

Dozens of Alberta school divisions have pulled more than 170 books from library shelves this year to comply with a provincial order, including poetry collections, award-winning graphic novels, a sex education comic book and the film and graphic novel adaptations of George Orwell’s 1984.

Education and Childcare Minister Demetrios Nicolaides directed schools to remove library materials containing visual depictions of sexual acts by Jan. 5. School divisions were also required to submit to the minister a list of the materials they intended to remove from their libraries.

According to documents released through an access to information request, 41 school divisions reported removing books in response to the province’s new library standards. The reports from these school authorities also give a first look at the varied application of Alberta’s book ban across hundreds of public, separate, francophone, charter and independent schools.

Though there were differences in how the ministerial order was interpreted and enforced, some titles were consistently singled out by school authorities.

Alan Moore’s graphic novel V for Vendetta was taken out of libraries in 11 school divisions, more than any other book. Blankets by Craig Thompson, one of the four graphic novels initially identified by Nicolaides as examples of inappropriate material available to students, was removed by 10 school divisions.

Other popular graphic novels such as Moore’s Watchmen, Mike Curato’s Flamer, adaptations of A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin and 1984 by George Orwell were banned by five or more school divisions.

Several libraries noted that in many cases there were only one or two panels in a graphic novel that led to it being removed.

Ira Wells, president of PEN Canada and author of On Book Banning, said that in the examples of inappropriate materials put forward by the province to justify the book ban, such as the graphic novels Blankets and Flamer, officials have taken “snippets of these books that are ripped out of context” to shock the public.

“There’s certainly a concern that those behind the initiative will end up limiting youth access to works that might have enriched their lives, that might have provided them with a sense that their own lives are worth living, that they’re not alone,” Wells said.

Canadian poet and illustrator Rupi Kaur’s books have sold millions of copies and been translated into 43 languages. They have also now been banned by four school divisions in Alberta.

“Kaur is not a pornographer,” Wells said. “She is, however, probably the most popular young poet in the world.”

He added, “Rupi may have been a kind of gateway into the pleasures of reading and into a lifetime of enjoying poetry…. And now those pleasures will be closed off from Alberta students, who will be intellectually poorer for the government’s actions.”

The library standards for explicit materials were introduced in May 2025, but the order was revised to focus restrictions on visual depictions and to “prevent misinterpretation” after the Edmonton Public School Board’s initial survey of its library collection identified more than 200 books that violated the province’s guidelines.

Even with the clarified scope, some school authorities were more cautious than others about what books were censored.

The Greater North Central Francophone Education Region, one of four French language school boards in Alberta, reported it had removed a young adult novel by Danielle Brouillette because the book cover features a cartoon banana wearing a condom as a hat. The school board’s list of materials sent to Alberta’s government notes this appears to violate the section of the ministerial order prohibiting depictions of “the use of artificial sexual organs or substitutes for sexual organs,” and that the book was “removed out of abundance of caution.”

The forms from Alberta’s education ministry that school authorities use to report literary materials they intend to remove include space for the book’s title, author, format and columns to identify which of the five definitions of explicit sexual material in the ministerial order the book conflicts with.

In one case, the Greater North Central Francophone Education Region removed a book from its collection despite it having no content that would meet the province’s definitions of an inappropriate image.

L’ABC des Filles by Catherine Girard-Audet is an annual collection of articles covering topics “likely to interest Quebec teenage girls” and profiles of “inspiring women,” according to the publisher. The school board said the book was removed because it had overly mature content for elementary students.

The Battle River School Division reported it was removing copies of the graphic novels Queer: A Graphic History, Be Gay Do Comics and Smash the Patriarchy because they contained content of a sexual nature as defined by the ministerial order.

The Strathcona-Tweedsmuir School in Foothills, Alta., took 10 titles from its collection, including Not Your Mother’s Meatloaf: A Sex Education Comic Book, a collection of comics submitted by young people related to sex education, and Welcome to St. Hell: My Trans Teen Misadventure by Lewis Hancox.

Several titles that school divisions reported they intended to remove were redacted in the documents released by Alberta education under section 29 of the Access to Information Act, dealing with advice to the minister. The lists of books submitted by three school divisions were fully redacted by the province.

Nicolaides said in a statement that school boards were left in charge of removing books that fell within the scope of the order.

“Some boards removed books that did not fall within scope, and we asked that those books remain on shelves. Books that had visual depictions of sexual acts, sex toy use or child molestation were to be removed, as those books should never be on a school library shelf,” Nicolaides said.

Wells said that the ministerial order is “inherently vague,” and the question of what makes an image sexually explicit varies over time and according to who is making the judgment.

“And I think the fact that you’re seeing some books banned in some jurisdictions and not in others speaks to that complication,” he said.

The documents also give insight into the amount of work libraries undertook to review their collections and ensure they were compliant with the new standards.

In communications with the province, the Calgary Board of Education (CBE) reported that its learning resources team centrally reviewed more than 2,100 titles, mostly graphic novels and manga. The team also held online training sessions for library staff and created forms to submit materials for review. Of the 700,000 titles in the CBE collection, 44 were flagged for removal.

“In reviewing the final list, many of the books that meet the criteria for an ‘explicit visual depiction of a sexual act’ are in our high school settings. In a vast number of these cases, there were one or two images in the entire graphic novel/book that met the criteria outlined in the ministerial order,” CBE chief superintendent Joanne Pitman reported in a document submitted to the education ministry.

Edmonton Public Schools previously reported that it hired 11 teachers last summer to review its collection at a cost to the school division of $43,000.

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