Plans to pull the controversial book The Golden Compass off the shelves are not on the agenda for the Nov. 28 meeting of the Simcoe Muskoka Catholic District School Board.

The Halton and the Dufferin-Peel Catholic boards have ordered The Golden Compass to be removed from library shelves until a review of the content of the book is completed. The books are still available to students upon request.

“Generally speaking, it is probably not something that would happen here,” said Diane Legg, manager of corporate communications and public affairs for SMCDSB. “We have general criteria for materials for our libraries, that they are age-appropriate and we encourage parents to have discussions about any materials. Part of what we call our ‘Catholic graduate expectations’ for all of our students is that we expect our students to be critical thinkers. Students are asked to think about books or controversial films in the context of their faith.”

The Golden Compass was written by popular British author Philip Pullman. Described in the press as a noted atheist, on his website, Pullman comes across as more of an agnostic. “I don’t know whether there’s a God or not,” he says. “Nobody does, no matter what they say. I think it’s perfectly possible to explain how the universe came about without bringing God into it, but I don’t know everything, and there may well be a God somewhere, hiding away.”

Inspired by the Fall in Milton’s Paradise Lost, Pullman’s three-part series, His Dark Materials, of which The Golden Compass is part one, deals with the killing of a senile god by children and the subsequent freeing of man. Each child in the book is accompanied by a “daemon” in animal form. The author describes a daemon as “that part of you that helps you grow towards wisdom.”

A movie version of the book, starring Nicole Kidman, opens Dec. 7 in Bracebridge.