The Alberta government is set to release its revised school library book ban on Monday afternoon.
The government had promised an updated ministerial order Friday, but the announcement was rescheduled to 3 p.m. Monday.
Education Minister Demetrios Nicolaides said in an email after the postponement that officials were taking the time needed to ensure a revised order was clear for all school boards.
Boards originally had until the end of the month to remove books containing images, illustrations, audio and written passages with sexually explicit content.
Edmonton’s public school board issued a list of 200 books that it would have to remove, including several literary classics like Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale and Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.
The popular Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon and Game of Thrones books by George R.R. Martin — both of which were turned into award-winning television series — were also on the EPSB list.
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The move prompting widespread criticism and ire from Atwood herself.
Dozens more books were set to be inaccessible to students in kindergarten through Grade 9, including George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby.
The government directed school boards last Tuesday to pause their work in complying with the initial order.
Premier Danielle Smith said the order would immediately be changed to only target books with images of sexual content, so literary classics could stay on school shelves.