This article just appeared in the NY Times.
Personally, I think it's a mountain made out of a
molehill, especially since we're taking about dogs,
but given all the controversy, would you rate it
Adult? smile
I'm really trying to be funny, there--but I suppose,
in case there are parents who might object, a warning
should be put in the long synopsis.
Cindy
With One Word, Children's Book Sets Off Uproar
Published: February 18, 2007
The word "scrotum" does not often appear in polite
conversation. Or children's literature, for that
matter.
Skip to next paragraph
A Newbery-winning book has been banned from some
school libraries around the country.
Alex Koester for The New York Times
Susan Patron, the author of the book and a librarian,
said the controversial word was just part of the
character's learning about body parts.
Yet there it is on the first page of "The Higher Power
of Lucky," by Susan Patron, this year's winner of the
Newbery Medal, the most prestigious award in
children's literature. The book's heroine, a scrappy
10-year-old orphan named Lucky Trimble, hears the word
through a hole in a wall when another character says
he saw a rattlesnake bite his dog, Roy, on the
scrotum.
"Scrotum sounded to Lucky like something green that
comes up when you have the flu and cough too much,"
the book continues. "It sounded medical and secret,
but also important."
The inclusion of the word has shocked some school
librarians, who have pledged to ban the book from
elementary schools, and reopened the debate over what
constitutes acceptable content in children's books.
The controversy was first reported by Publishers
Weekly, a trade magazine.
On electronic mailing lists like Librarian.net, dozens
of literary blogs and pages on the social-networking
site LiveJournal, teachers, authors and school
librarians took sides over the book. Librarians from
all over the country, including Missoula, Mont.;
upstate New York; Central Pennsylvania; and Portland,
Ore., weighed in, questioning the role of the
librarian when selecting - or censoring, some argued -
literature for children.
"This book included what I call a Howard Stern-type
shock treatment just to see how far they could push
the envelope, but they didn't have the children in
mind," Dana Nilsson, a teacher and librarian in
Durango, Colo., wrote on LM_Net, a mailing list that
reaches more than 16,000 school librarians. "How very
sad."
The book has already been banned from school libraries
in a handful of states in the South, the West and the
Northeast, and librarians in other schools have
indicated in the online debate that they may well
follow suit. Indeed, the topic has dominated the
discussion among librarians since the book was shipped
to schools.
Pat Scales, a former chairwoman of the Newbery Award
committee, said that declining to stock the book in
libraries was nothing short of censorship.
"The people who are reacting to that word are not
reading the book as a whole," she said. "That's what
censors do - they pick out words and don't look at the
total merit of the book."
If it were any other novel, it probably would have
gone unnoticed, unordered and unread. But in the world
of children's books, winning a Newbery is the rough
equivalent of being selected as an Oprah's Book Club
title. Libraries and bookstores routinely order two or
more copies of each year's winners, with the books
read aloud to children and taught in classrooms.
"The Higher Power of Lucky" was first published in
November by Atheneum/Richard Jackson Books, an imprint
of Simon & Schuster, accompanied by a modest print run
of 10,000. After the announcement of the Newbery on
Jan. 22, the publisher quickly ordered another 100,000
copies, which arrived in bookstores, schools and
libraries around Feb. 5.
Reached at her home in Los Angeles, Ms. Patron said
she was stunned by the objections. The story of the
rattlesnake bite, she said, was based on a true
incident involving a friend's dog.
And one of the themes of the book is that Lucky is
preparing herself to be a grown-up, Ms. Patron said.
Learning about language and body parts, then, is very
important to her.
"The word is just so delicious," Ms. Patron said. "The
sound of the word to Lucky is so evocative. It's one
of those words that's so interesting because of the
sound of the word."
Ms. Patron, who is a public librarian in Los Angeles,
said the book was written for children 9 to 12 years
old. But some librarians countered that since the
heroine of "The Higher Power of Lucky" is 10, children
older than that would not be interested in reading it.
"I think it's a good case of an author not realizing
her audience," said Frederick Muller, a librarian at
Halsted Middle School in Newton, N.J. "If I were a
third- or fourth-grade teacher, I wouldn't want to
have to explain that."
Authors of children's books sometimes sneak in a
single touchy word or paragraph, leaving librarians to
choose whether to ban an entire book over one
offending phrase.
In the case of "Lucky," some of them take no chances.
Wendy Stoll, a librarian at Smyrna Elementary in
Louisville, Ky., wrote on the LM_Net mailing list that
she would not stock the book. Andrea Koch, the
librarian at French Road Elementary School in
Brighton, N.Y., said she anticipated angry calls from
parents if she ordered it. "I don't think our
teachers, or myself, want to do that vocabulary
lesson," she said in an interview. One librarian who
responded to Ms. Nilsson's posting on LM_Net said
only: "Sad to say, I didn't order it for either of my
schools, based on 'the word.' "
Booksellers, too, are watchful for racy content in
books they endorse to customers. Carol Chittenden, the
owner of Eight Cousins, a bookstore in Falmouth,
Mass., said she once horrified a customer with "The
Adventures of Blue Avenger" by Norma Howe, a novel
aimed at junior high school students. "I remember one
time showing the book to a grandmother and enthusing
about it," she said. "There's a chapter in there
that's very funny and the word 'condom' comes up. And
of course, she opens the book right to the page that
said 'condom.' "
It is not the first time school librarians have
squirmed at a book's content, of course. Some school
officials have tried to ban Harry Potter books from
schools, saying that they implicitly endorse
witchcraft and Satanism. Young adult books by Judy
Blume, though decades old, are routinely kept out of
school libraries.
Ms. Nilsson, reached at Sunnyside Elementary School in
Durango, Colo., said she had heard from dozens of
librarians who agreed with her stance. "I don't want
to start an issue about censorship," she said. "But
you won't find men's genitalia in quality literature."
"At least not for children," she added.
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