Jean M. Auel’s Neolithic-age novel Clan of the Cave Bear has a brutal scene in which the protagonist, at age 10, is brutally beaten and raped by a Neanderthal (later, she gives birth to their child). This, I’m sure, is why it’s likely to be pulled from Edmonton Public School libraries in the fall.
It’s one of 200 titles that made the school board’s draft list of books slated for removal, which was recently leaked to CBC, due to the province’s sexual content guideline. That guideline states that no works containing graphic, explicit sex should be on school library shelves — and that access to works containing non-graphic depictions of sex should be limited to Grade 10 and up.
The classics were very violent.
