Children's book banned in Saskatchewan

Last week a school librarian from Kindersley, Saskatchewan called to say a library committee at her school has decided to pull our Saskatchewan Willow Award nominated book, Trouble on Tarragon Island by Nikki Tate from their shelves and they are returning all copies to their supplier. The librarian told me that the committee felt our book was not appropriate for the age level it was listed at (8 - 12) and they were offended by the words "saggy breasts" and "bazoongas" and in particular by the sentence on page 11, line 14: "And Simon had his hands cupped around two invisible melons suspended in front of him." That sentence is part of the opening scene in the book where the protagonist, Heather Blake, is being bullied at school after her tree-hugging Grandma has posed semi-nude in a Ladies of the Forest calendar to protest logging in an oldgrowth forest. The committee feels that by allowing students to read our book, they are condoning behaviour that they have zero tolerance for in their school.

Trouble on Tarragon Island 's author Nikki Tate has written a very interesting commentary about it on her blog here along with sending out a press release about it.