Strathcona Community BANNED Book Club

Hosted by SCCL members Jesse Enns Power & Cheryl West-Hicks

Your Community BANNED Book Club hosts discussions approximately four-five times per year. Our aim is to offer a variety of genres with an emphasis on diverse voices. 

Over the last couple of years, we’ve heard that books are being challenged and banned at an unprecedented rate not only in the United States, but also in Canada. Check out this graphic from the U.S.: 2022 Censorship by the Numbers. The majority of these books are written from historically marginalized communities. 

We’ve also heard that sometimes the challenged books haven’t even been read by those asking for their removal! So we thought that it would be great to challenge our community to read banned/challenged books, talk about what we’ve read, and form our own opinions! 

As many of these titles are YA (Young Adult) (this censorship movement is targeting both school libraries and public libraries) the Community BANNED Book Club may attract more youth in our neighbourhood too – we love it when youth attend these discussions!

Community BANNED Book Club titles can be borrowed at Edmonton Public Library or can be purchased with a 15% discount from Glass Bookshop (use the code BOOKCLUB15). Sometimes these titles will be available as an EPL Kit. In those instances, we will be able to supply you with a book from the kit. 

Please contact Jesse at jessenns@gmail.com for more information and to be added to the Community BANNED Book Club email mailing list! 

Community BANNED Book Club 2024 Schedule – Dates & Times TBA
February: The Colour Purple, Alice Walker. YA Fiction (No EPL kit)
April: Maus: A Survivor’s Tale, Art Spiegelman. Non-Fiction, Graphic Novel (No EPL kit)
June: The Perks of Being a WallFlower, Stephen Chbosky. YA Fiction (EPL Kit)
September: The Marrow Thieves, Cherie Dimaline. YA Sci-Fi (EPL Kit) 
November: The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison. YA Fiction (No EPL kit)

Updated Nov 23, 2023