Feb
19
2007
Susan Patron’s The Higher Power of Lucky won this year’s Newbery Medal, the highest honor for a children’s author. In it, the 10 year old protagonist uses the word “scrotum”. Librarians, school teachers, and booksellers are concerned about this word and have refused to order it for the bookshelves of school libraries saying that schoolteachers shouldn’t be required to explain this sort of thing to children or to expose children to these kinds of words.
I have a 10 year old nephew. He knows lots of words other than scrotum for his genitalia. I don’t think this word would shock or amaze him for more than a week. Via NYT.
It’s always shocking when its a librarian who bans a book…as if the entire concept isn’t bad enough, now the people who we count on to make books available for everyone. Grrr, I can feel my back getting up and it’s only February…at this rate I’m going to be the Hunchback of Notre Dame by the time September roles around!