Censorship

[JAS_Photo]

This award winning book has been banned in western Canada due to its cover:

This handout from Random House(RH) shows the cover of the book ... - Yahoo! Canada News Photos

A quick synopsis:
Quill & Quire
In her first novel, Annabel Lyon brilliantly re-imagines the real-life teacher/student relationship between Aristotle and a 13-year-old boy who would soon transform the world as Alexander the Great. The novel opens with Aristotle taking his wife and nephew to Pella, capital of Macedon. By the end of the first chapter, Aristotle encounters the young Alexander and learns that he is to become the boy’s tutor. The novel’s five-chapter structure is meant to remind us of the acts of a play, but it also acts as a classical rhetorical construct designed to persuade the reader, “winning the soul through discourse.” Lyon depicts Alexander as a bright, ostensibly rough-and-tumble teenager who must be physically trained for leadership and war, yet who is also internally frail and lonely. There is a tension between the public face Alexander puts on and the “different boy” Aristotle sees in their private sessions, who is “tense, intense . . . angry, curious, pompous, charming, driven.” For his part, Aristotle confesses, “I love to be on the inside, the backside, the underside of anything, and see the usually unseen.” Over the next six years, the worlds of this man and boy collide, combine, oppose, and complement each other. Aristotle’s narrative expands to include brief, delightfully realized diversions into history, biology, science, literature, medicine, politics, and philosophy. The novel is full of vivid descriptions and impressive imagery, as in Aristotle’s description of the season’s first snow, which “comes whispering late one gray evening.... It seems to fall from nowhere, bits of pure colourlessness peeled off from the sky and drifting down, thicker now.” Lyon’s singular gifts for description, character development, and plotting are on full display here, informing her unique and creative story. The novel is deep and rich in thought and accomplishment, yet it reads with the calming ease and influence of a cool summer breeze.

I think that it is a photograph on the front cover although it could be an illustration. I can no tell from the picture but if it were my work I would be quite proud of the photo. I am thinking it is banned because of the old Greek "Friendship" with young boys? They are making leaps of inference there for sure.

[Wicked Dark]

Sounds like an interesting book, actually. Banned by who exactly? Government? Bookstores?

[Mad Aussie]

A naked man on a horses back. Looks like the horse is trying to get him to safety. I can't see any reason to ban that at all.

You Canadians are Prudes!

[Hillbillygirl]

The ferry service in question is owned by the B.C. Provincial Gov't. Their quote is,"the service is a family business and we have children in our giftshop"
So what! It is not in any way a sexual photo, or insinuating anything other than a young lad being brought home by a horse.
It is the persons such as those that banned it, that I worry about, because if they read something more into it, then their mental stability comes into question, IMO.

[Bambi]

I agree that the cover is completely fine. It amazes me that a book like this would get banned by any store while a show like 'Toddlers and Tiaras' is considered entertainment.

Not all Canadians are prudes. just some. sigh.

[Marko]

Holy Moly! banned for that? You can't even see the important parts. We still in Canada?

It is the persons such as those that banned it, that I worry about, because if they read something more into it, then their mental stability comes into question, IMO.

100% agree.

[JAS_Photo]

Well, this whole brouhaha will attract attention to her book and heaven knows Canadian authors can use all the help they can get. Any reasonable, thinking person will see the folly in the ban and reasonable, thinking people are the intended audience for this book anyway.