Follow up with the Toronto Board re The Shepherd's Granddaughter

Dear Mr. Spence,

Four brief points following up on The Shepherd’s Granddaughter’s controversy and the steps the Toronto District School Board pledged or proposed to take in response:

1. Lloyd McKell, Executive Officer, Student and Community Equity, wrote that the TDSB would:
“implement a co-ordinated preview process for the Forest of Reading program, at the earliest possible point in the promotion process, in order to identify any concerns about individual books recommended by the OLA as part of the Forest of Reading program.”

The Committee struck to consider The Shepherd’s Granddaughter also recommended that in future the TDSB examine books in the Forest of Reading program before the schools start recommending them to children. Has the Board carried through? Schools across Toronto are promoting the new Forest of Reading books for 2011. Should our schools be endorsing these books? Has the Board checked them?

2. The Committee struck to consider The Shepherd’s Granddaughter recommended that when books are identified as controversial, students should be encouraged to apply their critical skills. On the evidence, this is an inadequate response. I first became deeply concerned about The Shepherd’s Granddaughter after reading a young person’s comment on Good Reads that: “Reading this book made me want to go to Palestine and kill Israelis.”

To assess how our students have reacted to The Shepherd’s Granddaughter, we can go to RedMaple OnLine, a site maintained by the Ontario Library Association where Ontario students reading books in the Red Maple program make comments.

Of the 18 comments on The Shepherd’s Granddaughter, only one student, book_freak1011, noticed the possibility of bias. I think we can assume this student was already aware of the Israeli-Palestinian issue beforehand and, from the vehemence of his/her response, perhaps felt the book as an assault.

The other students all accepted the book as a factual depiction of the supposed cruelty suffered by Palestinians, expressing no awareness of the possibility of bias or misrepresentation. See the student remarks below:

Taylorgirl
Dec 20, 2010
BORING! But I guess they want us to kno how bad the Jwsh are.

McDj27
Apr 22, 2010
looked at it didnt read but want too

Ecogirl101
Apr 20, 2010
This book was ok, but I found it too sad. I liked how it was about real life, though, because it can help people understand what's happening in the real world.

robin15
Apr 06, 2010
This book was an amazing book! it brought tears into my eyes to see how human biengs like us are bieng treated like this in palestin! This book got me thinking, that we take soooo many things for granted. But in this book, it opened a new point of view for me.

1knigh
Mar 26, 2010
I think that the sheperds granddaughter is a great book for beginner readers. This book is really interesting when the girl that wants to be a sheperd but her uncle and her father thinks that it is to risky and she might get shoot by the settlers and the armys trying to build the highway on top of the property.

Silvy
Mar 25, 2010
A very gripping story.
I'm glad the piano got saved :)
On April 22, it's either this one, or submarine outlaw!

zezedaoui
Mar 25, 2010
The Shepherd's Grand-daghter is a pretty good story. I thought it was sad. And i cannot believe that events like that happen today aswell. I really recommend this to people , and i think everyone would really enjoy this book.

darkdaughter2
Mar 24, 2010
boring

bhaloon
Mar 23, 2010
This book was pretty good and eye-opening for me, but I found it kind of boring.

patmunroe
Mar 23, 2010
The Shepherd's Granddaughter is a story of faith and fearlessness in times of trial. It's about a young girl who follows her dreams and brings with them the true meaning of friendship and family. Her story is very sad, but her strength is admirable.

spookum
Mar 11, 2010
I think it was so sad but very realistic for those living in Palestine.The relationship between Amani and Johnathon was very lifelike and is amazing for the language barrier between the two.

Nixknox
Mar 10, 2010
A very lifelike and realistic book. You could believe it was true, and the read wasn't bad.

GlobalGenius
Mar 05, 2010
didn't really like this book much, it had a slow writing style and took me a week to read (I can read the Harry Potter series in one day, so that means I was morer then a bit bored by it. This was the #10 book in all the Red Maple books, i honestly think they should've switched this book with Vanishing Girl, by Shane Peacock, he's an awesome Canadian author. One of the few parts I found entertaining in this book was when the house collapsed, but the piano was unharmed. Overall I wasn't a big fan of this book, but I did read it all the same.

Aberacadabera
Mar 04, 2010
This is a saddening book, but really opens the eyes of the reader.

peacebellreads
Mar 04, 2010
this book was really sad. i cant beleive this is still happening today. it really opened my eyes i definitely recommend it

Hermione905
Mar 03, 2010
Report This
not a great book it was just boring

book_freak1011
Mar 03, 2010
This book was very horendous, it was boring and i don't agree with the author!

beloved12
Mar 02, 2010
this book was good, really good and although it was sad it had a ----- ------

(see: http://maple.bibliocommons.com/item/comments/655260007_the_shepherds_granddaughter)

3. Mr. McKell argued that: “The Shepherd's Granddaughter contains several themes for creative discussions in our classrooms.” However, he also directed “that guidance from the teachers and teacher librarians is important in producing the desired outcomes.”

Has the Board followed up to ensure that The Shepherd’s Granddaughter is off library shelves throughout the TDSB and accessible to students only to read with guidance?

4. Board policy on dealing with controversial material requires that:
“information, as well as opinions, gathered from a variety of different sources, must be brought to bear on the topics in question.”

Do Toronto schools typically have materials on Israel and the Israeli-Arab conflict to provide student with information and opinions from a variety of sources, as required by Board policy? Especially do the libraries contain material favourable to Israel that might act as a corrective to the biased account provided in The Shepherd’s Granddaughter?

When will the Board follow up to ensure that, if students are exposed to The Shepherd’s Granddaughter, they will also have access to material that counters its partisan and bigoted stance?

Thank you very much for your continuing attention and professionalism in regard to this important issue.

Yours truly...

Update: Chris Spence has replied and assured me that the Board did vet the 2011 Forest of Reading books before schools began encouraging children to read them and that this will be the policy henceforth. Of course no real movement on getting better books about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict into schools.

Director of Education supports The Shepherd's Granddaughter

Chris Spence, the director of education for the Toronto School Board, has issued his decision in regard to the Shepherd’s Granddaughter. He’s decided to accept all nine recommendation of the committee looking into my compalint about the book. So he’s rejected my suggestion that The Shepherd’s Granddaughter be used as an example of the kind of book that should never get on a recommended reading list for kids in grade school.

Well, it would have been a surprise if he’d rejected the recommendations of the Board’s own committee and gone with my recommendation instead. Besides, the most important issue is that our schools have been promoting books recommended by the Ontario Library Association without anyone on the school board ever reading them and without the books ever being vetted by any teacher or school librarian.

The Board’s now realized that they can’t take it for granted that the Library Association will recommend wholesome books. In future, books recommended by the OLA will be vetted and school librarians will actually read them before giving them to any students.

Concerning The Shepherd's Granddaughter, the issue is that the TDSB was recommending a book of anti-Israeli propaganda to all kids in grades 7 and 8, a book that defames Israelis and Jews as child murderers.

After I complained, the Board decided that this book should be classed as a "controversial book." This meant that teachers were supposed to guide students before, during and after they read the book, and school libraries were supposed to make material available so that it would be possible for students to get other views on the conflict. However, it doesn’t appear that these policies were followed.

Again, no surprise. School librarians don’t have the time to guide students as they read a book, and it’s impossible to provide students with alternate, less biased material on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, because for this age group, such resources don’t exist.

I then made a formal complaint about the book, arguing that The Shepherd's Granddaughter is a perfect example of the kind of book schools should not recommend to our children. That when the schools recommend a book about a contentious political issue, it should be an intelligent book that makes an attempt at even-handedness and that shows the humanity of people on both sides of the conflict.

The Board disagreed. The committee that looked at this book argued it's a good thing the book is biased, as this gives kids an opportunity to practice their critical skills. The director of education for the Board has now said he agrees with them.

And for the time being, that’s where the matter rests…

Final(?) arguments re The Shepherd's Granddaughter

The Toronto School Board committee struck to consider The Shepherd's Granddaughter finally got around to issuing their report a few weeks ago. As expected, it was long, carefully worded and about as intelligent as one should expect from any report written by a committee of bureaucrats. The committee sent the report to me and to the Director of Eductaion, Chris Spence, for his final decision.

I sent a note the Chris Spence, as well...

Dear Mr. Spence,

I believe the committee struck to consider The Shepherd’s Granddaughter has gone astray; though with reservations, I support eight of their nine recommendations.

I do hope that, in future, school librarians spend scarce dollars on better books, but I am not concerned that the committee recommends The Shepherd’s Granddaughter simply be available. The book has a large cast of poorly developed characters whom the reader can’t keep track of, while the author is utterly humorless, incapable of irony and possessed of an earnestness that’s exceeded only by her ignorance. Few children will ever read the book without encouragement.

My complaint was never about whether The Shepherd’s Granddaughter should be available to students, but rather that the schools shouldn't have been recommending this book to students. Unfortunately, the committee simply ignored this objection.

If schools are going to promote a list of 10 books to all students in grades 7 and 8, the schools should ensure that the list of such highly recommend books are actually good. I would have thought it obvious that the standard must be higher than for a book that is merely available to students in the library.

If I were to amend the list of recommendations, I might simply amend recommendation #8 to read that in considering whether a book should be actively promoted to students (as in the Forest of Reading program, for example), The Shepherd’s Granddaughter should be taken as an example of a book that should be excluded, because:

- The book’s obvious bias throws into doubt its veracity. That is, in the absence of certainty about contested events, a book that is so obviously one-sided should be assumed to be both unfair and untruthful. Rather than being a good faith attempt to portray a complex situation, the book should be recognized as being mere propaganda.

- The book portrays people of a certain nationality (Israeli) as arbitrarily violent, as child murderers. The presence of a few exceptions to the norm who show they are good Jews by siding with the Palestinians does not mitigate the hateful depiction.

- The book defames a religion, depicting Jews as commanded by their God to steal and kill. It must be noted that this depiction is voiced by the novel’s main character and confirmed by the only developed Jewish character.

- The author clearly prefers non-violent “resistance” to the evil Israelis, but the book represents violence as a legitimate option. While there are many purely villainous Israelis in this book, the author depicts dear Uncle Hani – who champions suicide bombing and declares no Israeli is innocent – as a sympathetic character. The book also refers to friends of Omar who are engaged in violent “resistance” in an approving way.

The committee agrees the book is biased but underestimates the extent of that bias and overestimates the practical ability of teacher-librarians to deal with the problem. For example, I strongly concur with recommendation 7: “that school libraries provide students with access to a variety of resources which give them an understanding of the contexts of the controversial issues contained in their independent reading.”

This recommendation restates what’s already contained in the Board document on dealing with controversial material. But in fact, school libraries don’t have resources that might provide context and act as a corrective to the bigoted portrayal of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict contained in The Shepherd’s Granddaughter.

Nonetheless, after the Board designated this book as controversial, schools continued to promote it as part of the Forest of Reading program, even in the absence of corrective resources. Indeed, schools still continue to make the book available to students without providing resources that could place the book in context and act as a corrective to the book’s bias – contrary to Board policy.

When schools make controversial books available (never mind actively promoting them), resources that can provide balance and act as a corrective to bias must be in place first.

In dealing with The Shepherd’s Granddaughter, the Board was clearly at fault in that it’s failed to withdraw the book until corrective resources can be provided.

Of course, for that to happen such age-appropriate resources need to exist, and in regards to the Middle East, I don’t think they do.

Moreover, for all that we have many marvelous teachers in the Toronto Board, very few of them have any expertise in the Middle East, and while they might be able to support critical reading of The Shepherd’s Granddaughter, they’ll be unable to provide context and will be just as clueless as the students as to which parts might be true or half-true and which parts are wholly false.

The committee acknowledges "that the novel portrays the Palestinians in a sympathetic light as compared to the Israelis depicted in the novel." But to pretend that Israelis are merely portrayed less sympathetically is a gross understatement, a whitewash. The Israelis are depicted as villains, as continually and mindlessly violent, as child-murderers.

The committee engages in special pleading on behalf of the book. They claim the book can be defined as "oppositional reading"; that is, as a work that encourages readers to see events from a viewpoint in opposition to the preferred, mainstream or dominant perspective. The committee evidently means to suggest that Canadians don't usually get a Palestinian perspective; rather that they usually get a perspective sympathetic to the Israeli point of view. This is wrong in three ways:

First, it's simply untrue. In general Canadian media give the Palestinian narrative at least as much weight as the Israeli view.

Second, it's out of touch with the reality of children in grades 7 and 8. The overwhelming majority of twelve- and thirteen-year-olds aren’t familiar with some dominant perspective of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; they've had almost no exposure to the issue at all. For nearly all of them The Shepherd's Granddaughter will have been their first substantial exposure to the issue and for most will be their last substantial exposure, as well. As such, this book, which the committee agrees is biased, will likely form the students’ perspective.

Third, The Shepherd's Granddaughter does not give a Palestinian perspective. It shows the Palestinian-Israeli conflict as appropriated by a Canadian anti-Israel activist; and there's no reason to suppose that its depiction of Palestinians is any more authentic than its depiction of Israelis. If "oppositional reading" simply means propaganda, if it means the book shows an off the wall perspective not taken seriously by anyone outside the Libby Davies wing of the NDP, then this is indeed "oppositional reading," and as such certainly should never be recommended to students.

The committee claims a good feature of the book is that it represents characters from different religions. But in regards to Jews, the committee is confusing representation and defamation. In The Shepherd’s Granddaughter the main character “represents” Jews as having a God who commands them to steal and kill and the only significant Jewish character confirms this defamation as being true.

The committee chose a member of the Urban Alliance on Race Relations to aid them in their deliberations, a woman named Tam Goossen. It’s a pity they didn’t choose someone with some knowledge of Jewish issues. On the contrary, Goossen is prominent in Toronto NDP circles, and as it’s well-known that most NDP activists have an anti-Israel bias (see here), her inclusion on the committee cannot generate confidence.

The Committee claims a good feature of the book is that it addresses issues from a variety of perspectives. This is facile. Which perspectives are chosen is obviously far more important than the mere number of perspectives. The book does not represent any mainstream Israeli perspective. Rather, a group of murderous religious settlers are depicted as the Israeli norm.

Another supposed Israeli perspective depicted in the book is voiced by the Israeli soldier who claims that "We [Israel's soldiers] kill Palestinian boys." Again, this is defamation, not representation. The committee fails to recognize the difference.
In addition to these false and grossly negative portrayals there are a couple very minor Jewish characters who don’t represent any distinct Israeli position but simply side with the Palestinians. The main Jewish character is an American boy who, we’re told, doesn’t know enough Hebrew to take a bus.

On the Palestinian side, there is no perspective represented that is in the least critical of the Palestinian leadership; no Palestinian character wishing that their own leaders would pursue peace.

Rather, the perspectives provided all conform to the author’s vision of Palestinians as victims, unable to do anything but resist the evil Israelis who are intent on cleansing them from the land. In short, the book is a mere a collection of anti-Israel clichés.


It’s good that the committee confirmed the earlier recommendation that someone from the Board should actually read these books recommended by Ontario Library Association before encouraging students to read them. What’s needed is a clear statement from the Board that The Shepherd’s Granddaughter is an example of the kind of bigoted text that teachers and librarians should never recommend to students, either within the Forest of Reading program or elsewhere.

Yours,…

P.S. I have lots more to say, but no time to say it.

Update on The Shepherd's Granddaughter

This update is long overdue - my apologies. But I expected the whole process of complaining to the school board about this book to be over long ago - which just goes to show how badly I underestimate bureaucracy. But there has been progress.

First and most importantly, the Toronto Board has decided that in future it won't assume that the Ontario Library Association recommends good, wholesome books. Instead, the Board will do it's own assessment to make sure books recommended by the librarians meet the board's anti-racism standards. As far as I'm concerned, this is the most important step for the Board to take and anything beyond it is gravy.

Second, the Board has classified The Shepherd's Granddaughter as a "controversial book." This means that students are alerted that the book may be biased if not downright bigoted and teachers are to guide students before, during and after they read the book.

In addition, teachers are supposed to supply students with other books that provide differing(and more accurate) views of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Unfortunately, the Board hasn't carried through with this last bit, probably because they can't: for children in this age group, there aren't any good books about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict or even about the broader Arab-Israeli conflict.

This isn't a big surprise. Take any contemporary conflict and you'll find very few children's books about it - for the obvious reason that most authors can distinguish between their own obsessions and children's actual interests. Unfortunately, anti-Israeli activists are an exception to this rule and feel no shame about attempting to propagandize children. (For a report on another example, of Israel-haters trying to propagandize students, see here.)

I do know of one Young Adult book on the Palestinian Israeli conflict which does an excellent job of humanizing people on both sides: A Bottle in the Gaza Sea by Valerie Zenatti. But it's for kids in high school, not grades 7 and 8.

But back to my update: The York Region School Board also put a caution on The Shepherd's Granddaughter so that it's only available in the context of teacher-guided reading, and the Niagara Board "red-flagged" the book so that librarians and teachers will warn students that the contents aren't to be believed. To me these seem to be reasonable steps and better than banning the book outright, which I don't favour.

Still better would be to spend precious library dollars on books that are actually good and don't tell students that the Jewish God commands them to kill and steal and that Israelis are child-killers. But for most school libraries in Ontario, it's too late for that.

(My complaint to the Board has nothing to do with banning the book. I objected to the schools promoting The Shepherd's Granddaughter to grade 7 and 8 students as a book they should read - which I'm sure the Board would never have done on its own account. The book got distributed on the recommendation of the Ontario Library Association, without anyone from the Toronto Board reading the book first.)

Meanwhile, The Shepherd's Granddaughter did not win the Red Maple Award. No surprise there, as the book is not only bigoted, it's boring. It was nominated by a committee of librarians, obviously on the basis of its politics, not its literary qualities. The winner of the Red Maple for 2010, as chosen by Ontario children is Word Nerd, a great book by Susin Nielsen.

And the Toronto Board continues its formal review of The Shepherd's Granddaughter. It's been a couple months now, but I'm not complaining. The board conducted its initial, informal review very quickly and slapped the "controversial" label and all the restrictions that go with that label within in days of receiving my complaint.

Every few weeks someone from the board phones me to assure me that they haven't fallen off the planet and that the bureaucracy's slow grind is continuing. Doubtless, sooner or later, they will issue a very cautiously worded report. But in the meanwhile, the chief victory - making sure that in future books recommended by the Ontario Library Association are vetted first - is already won.

Note: For my original complaint to the Toronto School Board (and to the Ministry of Education), see here.

Let's keep political propaganda out of our elementary schools

When teachers enter a classroom – especially an elementary school classroom – they leave their political agendas at the door. They're not allowed to use our schools to preach their own views. Neither are they allowed to bring their agenda in through the back door by having the kids read a book that just happens to present their views and no other.

However, in the case of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, this is exactly what the Ontario Library Association has done – twice. If you want to know what it's all about, read my open letter to the Minister of Education, below.

In response, the Minister has chosen the path of least courage and is pretending the issue doesn't exist. So, as she's useless, it's up to us. Please help keep our elementary schools a politics-free zone. Google your school board, (you don't need to have a child in school to do this) and email the Superintendent of Education (or the Director of Education) or a Trustee. Tell them:

– We don't want our schools used to promote anyone's political agenda.
– We don't want our schools to recommend books to our kids that might promote hatred of any people or of any religion
– Ask the Board to investigate whether The Shepherd's Granddaughter is an appropriate book for our teacher-librarians to be promoting and whether it should be removed from the Red Maple program
– Ask that, in the future, the school board vet books recommended by the Ontario Library Association, as they've shown they can't be trusted.
– Urge them to act quickly. For a few weeks now, teacher-librarians across Ontario have been innocently urging our children to read all the books in the Library Association's Red Maple program, including the odious Shepherd's Granddaughter.

Note: In Toronto, school board trustee Sheila Ward has vowed to get the Shepherd’s Granddaughter off the shelves. See here.
And in York Region, access to the book has been restricted. See here.

The Shepherd's Granddaughter, an open letter

Dear Leona Dombrowsky, Minister of Education:

I have a child in a Toronto elementary school, and it's come to my attention that children in her class and children across Ontario in grades 7 and 8 are reading The Shepherd’s Granddaughter by Anne Laurel Carter, a book that seems designed to teach kids to hate Israelis.

The book is part of the Red Maple program – ten supposedly outstanding books selected by the Ontario Library Association and which teacher-librarians across the province are innocently encouraging children to read.

The heroine of The Shepherd’s Granddaughter is an adolescent shepherd girl named Amani. In her first encounter with an Israeli, he shoots one of her sheep. Amani flees before the Israeli can kill any more of her sheep – or her. Later, the Israelis poison her whole flock.

What provokes them to do this? Nothing at all. In this book, it’s just the sort of crime Israelis commit – all the time. Indeed, I can barely begin to list the atrocities these fictional Israelis heap on an innocent Palestinian family.

They build a settlement on the family’s grazing land, and when the Palestinians stage a peaceful sit-down protest, the Israeli army punishes them. They chop down the family orchards, crush their houses and barns with bulldozers, and shoot the heroine’s dog.

The father rides up on a donkey, shouting at the Israelis to stop, so they shoot the donkey out from under him. Then they beat the father, kicking him as he lies on the ground and striking him with their rifle butts.

When Amani throws a stone at one of the bulldozers, the driver pursues her, attempting to crush her to death.

The author has Israelis speak, too, but only to reinforce her damning portrayal of them. At a roadblock outside Hebron, an Israeli soldier informs the family: “We shoot Palestinian boys.”

But the main Israeli spokesperson is the son of one of the settlers, a sixteen-year-old American kid who befriends Amani. He explains to her that the Palestinians should simply leave because God gave this land to the Jews.

Amani says, “Your God says kill us? Steal our land?”

“They don’t see it as stealing,” the Jewish boy replies. “They’ll provoke you, kill you if that’s what it takes to get back their Holy Land.”

Note that the boy doesn't deny that the Jewish God commands Jews to kill; he rather confirms it.

In fairness, there is also a very minor second sympathetic Jewish character in this book - a rabbi. However, again, this character does not present the Israeli side of the debate. Rather, he's a good Jew because he takes the side of the Palestinians.

Also, anyone familiar with anti-Israel propaganda will recognize the theme of ethnic cleansing enunciated by this book. Of course, that Israel's supposed policy of forcing Palestinians to leave is pure fantasy can be seen by the population explosion in the West Bank over the past 40 years. But the depiction of Israelis as not merely brutal but genocidal helps build the rationale for terrorism – as it does in this book.

The heroine’s uncle Hani declares: “They want our land, our water. They want to drive us out, village by village.” Significantly, this character continually urges violence and applauds news of a suicide bombing that kills 11 young people, aged 14 to 21.

“No Israeli is innocent,” he declares.

It should go without saying (but apparently doesn’t) that the Israeli army doesn’t go around shooting children – boys or girls – and doesn’t favour crushing girls with bulldozers. This depiction of Israeli evil is so over the top it’s medieval, though admittedly the Jews in this story don’t poison wells, just sheep.

Further, Israel hasn’t built new settlements since 1999, and most settlements were built in the 1970s and 1980s. Continuing disputes about the settlements concern building within the boundaries of existing settlements.

Back when the sort of isolated settlements described in this story were being built, they were generally situated on barren, unused land, and contrary to the claims of this book, Palestinian villages were not mowed down to make way for them.

Israel has indeed torn down Palestinian houses – in particular the homes of suicide bombers in an attempt to discourage further mass murder, but not as this book claims, to punish Palestinians leading peaceful protests.

It must be noted that the heroine’s father is appalled by Uncle Hani’s enthusiasm for murder as a political tool, and the book’s author clearly prefers peaceful opposition to Israel. Nonetheless, Carter portrays terrorism – “resistance” as she calls it – as a legitimate side of the Palestinian dialogue. Indeed, with this book, Carter has made her own small contribution to the legend of Israeli evil, which is the narrative that fuels terrorism.

On “Goodreads” a website where readers review books, I came across this comment from a girl calling herself Madeline: “Reading this book made me want to go to Palestine and kill Israelis” (here). Unfortunately, that’s a perfectly natural reaction to this book which our kids are being encouraged to read.

You must realize that for the large majority of our children, this book will be their first substantive introduction to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and having read the book, its contents will comprise their entire knowledge of the subject. And not only are they not being encouraged to also consult better and more even-handed sources, but for this age group, such books don’t even exist.

I don't want to this book banned, but our teacher-librarians should not be encouraging our children to read a biased, one-sided and prejudicial account of such a complex and sensitive issue.

The Shepherd's Granddaughter should be withdrawn from the Red Maple program immediately.

Moreover, this is the second time in a few years that the Ontario Library Association has slipped anti-Israeli propaganda into their Forest of Reading Program. Two years ago, the OLA recommend Three Wishes, a book that normalizes terrorism, including an interview with a girl who admires her older sister for having become a suicide bomber and murdering two Israelis. The OLA recommended this book for 10- and 11-year-olds.

Generally the Forest of Reading is a wonderful program. But as the OLA seems determined to to use our schools to promote a particular extremist political view, the school boards must review how they vet books recommended by the OLA.

Finally, on a personal note, as a parent I’ve always known that my children will eventually encounter anti-Israeli propaganda, but I'd hoped it wouldn't be something we'd have to deal with in elementary school. I’m sick at heart to see that I was wrong.

Yours truly

…

Post script: "Madeline," the girl who wrote: "Reading this book made me want to go to Palestine and kill Israelis" turns out to be 21, not a teen as I'd supposed, and she had the good sense to realize the book's depiction of Israelis couldn't possibly be right. I guess this shows the difference between a 21-year-old and the 12- and 13-year-olds who were being encouraged to read this book.

To see how the kids in grades 7 and 8 reacted to the The Shepherd’s Granddaughter, we can go to RedMaple OnLine, a site maintained by the Ontario Library Association where Ontario students reading books in the Red Maple program make comments.

There are only 18 comments about the Shepherd's Granddaughter, because students were much more interested in the other, much better books in the Red Maple program. But of those 18, only one student, book_freak1011, noticed the possibility of bias. I think we can assume this student was already aware of the Israeli-Palestinian issue beforehand and, from the vehemence of his/her response, perhaps felt the book as an assault.

The other students all accepted the book as a factual depiction of the supposed cruelty Israelis inflict on Palestinians, expressing no awareness of the possibility of bias or misrepresentation. See the student remarks below:

Taylorgirl Dec 20, 2010 BORING! But I guess they want us to kno how bad the Jwsh are.

McDj27 Apr 22, 2010 looked at it didnt read but want too

Ecogirl101 Apr 20, 2010 This book was ok, but I found it too sad. I liked how it was about real life, though, because it can help people understand what's happening in the real world.

robin15 Apr 06, 2010 This book was an amazing book! it brought tears into my eyes to see how human biengs like us are bieng treated like this in palestin! This book got me thinking, that we take soooo many things for granted. But in this book, it opened a new point of view for me.

1knigh Mar 26, 2010 I think that the sheperds granddaughter is a great book for beginner readers. This book is really interesting when the girl that wants to be a sheperd but her uncle and her father thinks that it is to risky and she might get shoot by the settlers and the armys trying to build the highway on top of the property.

Silvy Mar 25, 2010 A very gripping story. I'm glad the piano got saved :) On April 22, it's either this one, or submarine outlaw!

zezedaoui Mar 25, 2010 The Shepherd's Grand-daghter is a pretty good story. I thought it was sad. And i cannot believe that events like that happen today aswell. I really recommend this to people , and i think everyone would really enjoy this book.

darkdaughter2 Mar 24, 2010 boring

bhaloon Mar 23, 2010 This book was pretty good and eye-opening for me, but I found it kind of boring.

patmunroe Mar 23, 2010 The Shepherd's Granddaughter is a story of faith and fearlessness in times of trial. It's about a young girl who follows her dreams and brings with them the true meaning of friendship and family. Her story is very sad, but her strength is admirable.

spookum Mar 11, 2010 I think it was so sad but very realistic for those living in Palestine.The relationship between Amani and Johnathon was very lifelike and is amazing for the language barrier between the two.

Nixknox Mar 10, 2010 A very lifelike and realistic book. You could believe it was true, and the read wasn't bad.

GlobalGenius Mar 05, 2010 didn't really like this book much, it had a slow writing style and took me a week to read (I can read the Harry Potter series in one day, so that means I was morer then a bit bored by it. This was the #10 book in all the Red Maple books, i honestly think they should've switched this book with Vanishing Girl, by Shane Peacock, he's an awesome Canadian author. One of the few parts I found entertaining in this book was when the house collapsed, but the piano was unharmed. Overall I wasn't a big fan of this book, but I did read it all the same.

Aberacadabera Mar 04, 2010 This is a saddening book, but really opens the eyes of the reader.

peacebellreads Mar 04, 2010 this book was really sad. i cant beleive this is still happening today. it really opened my eyes i definitely recommend it

Hermione905 Mar 03, 2010 Report This not a great book it was just boring

book_freak1011 Mar 03, 2010 This book was very horendous, it was boring and i don't agree with the author!

beloved12 Mar 02, 2010 this book was good, really good and although it was sad it had a ----- ------

(Shepherd's Granddaughter at RedMaple online: here)