Please, won’t someone think of the children?
The latest news in book banning is courtesy of some U.S. school librarians who are refusing to carry the Newbery award-winning The Higher Power of Lucky by Susan Patron. The librarians are in a tizzy about Patron’s use of the word “scrotum” on the first page of the book, which is for 9- to 12-year-olds.
In The New York Times article, one librarian seems more concerned about teachers’ embarrassment if they have to provide an anatomy lesson … because who wants a teacher to impart knowledge? But how likely is it to come up anyway–at that age, won’t most kids ask their friends before turning to an adult?
Gelf Magazine, in an amusing rebuttal, has posted a list of other children’s books that contain “the word.” (Thanks for the tip, Bookslut.)
For further discussion of naughtiness in children’s and YA books, be sure to check out the January/February issue of Q&Q, on stands until Feb. 25, which has articles addressing swearing and teenage sex, though no scrotums.
Ah, yes, another sadly amusing mirror-image view of ‘Canada’s Best Friend’ to the south… I’m not sure whether this isn’t a sort of sequel to ‘Reading Lolita in Tehran’; I’m waiting for ‘Reading Lucky in Des Moines. You’ve got to love a nation who stomps all over the world bringing freedom and democracy, but who can’t deal with human anatomy. (It makes me wonder how they can write an instruction manual for interrogators at Guantánamo if they have never been told what the word ’scrotum’ means… like, “hey, Sarge, I should put WHAT in the clamp?) Oh, the land of the free, home of the brave, where civilization is only skin deep…