‘Distinguished company’

Dear Editor:

This is a plea to the Alberta Minister of Education. Please ban my young adult novel, This Game of War.

It doesn’t matter what it’s about; there surely must be something in it that someone, somewhere, will find offensive, objectionable or inappropriate.

For example, there’s a bit where the crew of a Lancaster bomber all pee on one of its tires before takeoff – for luck. There’s bound to be other things in the book that will punch someone’s outrage button, if they look hard enough.

I want you to ban my book because that will put me in the very distinguished company of other authors whose works have been subject to bans: William Shakespeare, James Joyce, J.R.R. Tolkien, Margaret Atwood, J.K. Rowling, George Orwell, Judy Blume, Jack London, Maya Angelou, Stephen King, Anne Frank, Oscar Wilde, F. Scott Fitzgerald …

The list is quite long, and I’d like to be part of it. Also, nothing makes people want to read a book as much as telling them they can’t. Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Ed Butts,
Guelph