That time when an Australian author responded to a Chilliwack trustee’s book banning histrionics
With Alberta's Orwellian move to ban hundreds of books making headlines, let's not forget MLA Heather Maahs' long campaign to rid school libraries of sexy words
This is a version of a story I wrote in 2019 after reaching out to the Australian author of the book Maahs used as an example of the many, many books she wanted – and still wants – banned from Chilliwack schools – PJH, Sept. 3, 2025
“Apparently a few mildly sensual/sexual thoughts and encounters in one of my books for teenagers has caused horror and outrage among some adult readers in Chilliwack”
That's an excerpt from an emailed message I received from award-winning Australian author John Marsden after reaching out to him to comment on the Evangelical histrionics from then Chilliwack school board trustee Heather Maahs.
He was commenting after I told him Maahs – who is now the MLA for Chilliwack North – had her Bible-loving knickers in a knot over a passage in Marsden's dark fiction novel for young readers Tomorrow, When the War Began, which has sold millions of copies worldwide and won numerous awards.
Marsden had actually been following my Tweets about Maahs and her moral panic having been alerted by his sister to what she called “the Chilliwack crisis.”
At a school board meeting in April 2019, Maahs took time to read the following passage from Tomorrow, When the War Began (and got the title of the book wrong and even one of the words wrong), which is written from the viewpoint of a teenage girl living through an insurgence by an unnamed country:
“I was clinging to him and pressing against him as though I wanted to let my whole body inside him and I liked the way I could make him groan and grasp and swear [the word in the novel is sweat]. I liked giving him pleasure, although it was hard to tell what was pleasure and what was pain. I was teasing him, touching him and saying ‘Does that hurt? Does that? Does that?’ and he was panting saying ‘Oh God … no, yes, no’. It made me feel powerful.”
This tepid piece of good writing was enough for Maahs to get out the pitchforks and torches and get in book-burning mode. She said it was an example of learning materials with a “sexual nature” that should require informed parental consent.
“I think we can all figure out that I’m talking about sexual content in the curriculum,” Maahs said at the meeting, referring to the SOGI 123 anti-bullying 2SLGBTQ+ materials.
I reached out to Marsden after the school board meeting to see what he thought. The then 68-year-old responded via email.
He wrote somewhat sarcastically about the “mildly sensual/sexual thoughts and encounters in one of my books for teenagers has caused horror and outrage among some adult readers in Chilliwack.”
“I don’t write about sex much, but when I do I try to show it as a profound experience. As a teacher in Australian schools I was horrified – perhaps even outraged! – that not many years ago sex education was entrusted to the science department, where it tended to be taught as a strictly biological interaction.”
As for parental consent and control over every aspect of what children come in contact with, Marsden pointed out that parents don't own their children any more than husbands own wives or vice versa, a frequent oversight in the religious conservative world.
“The idea that our children can be sculpted, shaped, modified endlessly, until they exactly resemble the people we want them to be, is a recipe for catastrophic mental illness,” Marsden said.
“Of course we must teach kids, and that includes inculcating values, helping them develop strength of character, and setting limits.”
Using an outdoors analogy, as he put it, that doesn’t mean children should be planted in neat rows, trimmed daily, fed distilled water. Instead, children should be free to roam, along the way garnering important knowledge about the outdoors from parents and other elders.
“As they grow older, young people could even go as far as the waterfall, or along the gorge, or into the caves, where they might find wonderful creatures, or artwork from ancient times.”
Moving past the analogy, he said his golden rule in raising children is that parents and teachers have no right to intentionally keep kids ignorant.
“If we don’t teach them about resilience, relationships, money, politics, the natural world, sex we are setting them up for failed adult lives,” he said. “We only have to look at previous generations and our own generation to see the sad truth of that.”
As for Maahs and her concern about Marsden’s book and other material she deems too sexual for kids in public schools, she put forth a motion to demand for informed parental consent. The late board chair Dan Coulter spoke against her motion calling it reminiscent of book banning and book burning.
“This is Alabama time, and we should stay away from it,” Coulter said, in part.
Her motion failed in a vote of four to three with, unsurprisingly, trustees Barry Neufeld and Darrell Furgason voting for the book bans.
The four trustees who quashed her motion pointed out that parents already can speak to teachers about content used in the classroom.
John Marsden’s entire email in response to Heather Maahs' 2019 moral panic about his teen novel Tomorrow, When the War Began:
I don’t believe that parents own their children any more than husbands own their wives or wives their husbands. The idea that our children can be sculpted, shaped, modified endlessly, until they exactly resemble the people we want them to be, is a recipe for catastrophic mental illness.
Of course we must teach kids, and that includes inculcating values, helping them develop strength of character, and setting limits. But to use an outdoors analogy, it does not mean planting them in neat rows, trimming them every day, and drip feeding them with distilled water. The ideal upbringing would be to let them roam across the fields, into the woods, down to the stream. Along the way, parents and other elders would teach them how to deal with venomous snakes, how to climb trees or ride the rapids, how to avoid sunburn.
As they grow older, young people could even go as far as the waterfall, or along the gorge, or into the caves, where they might find wonderful creatures, or artwork from ancient times.
OK, enough of the outdoors analogy! But to me, one of the golden rules in raising children is that we have no right to keep them in ignorance. If we don’t teach them about resilience, relationships, money, politics, the natural world, sex we are setting them up for failed adult lives. We only have to look at previous generations and our own generation to see the sad truth of that.
Apparently a few mildly sensual/sexual thoughts and encounters in one of my books for teenagers has caused horror and outrage among some adult readers in Chilliwack. I don’t write about sex much, but when I do I try to show it as a profound experience. As a teacher in Australian schools I was horrified –perhaps even outraged! – that not many years ago sex education was entrusted to the Science Department, where it tended to be taught as a Strictly Biological Interaction. Lots of diagrams on the blackboards, and instruction about ova and spermatozoa and uteri and prepuces. This is inadequate, even dishonest education, seemingly motivated by a fearful attitude towards sex.
Young people have a right to knowledge. That includes helping them gain an understanding of the wonderful engagement of mind, body, feelings and soul in the best sexual experiences. They might then have a better chance of avoiding the arid, joyless encounters to which so many hundreds of millions of people have been sentenced in Western and some other societies, over so many centuries now.
Thanks again Paul!
Warm regards,
John (Marsden)
-30-
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Paul J. Henderson
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