Children’s Book Sets Off Uproar
New York Times (via Instapundit)
The word “scrotum” does not often appear in polite conversation. Or children’s literature, for that matter.
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.
I am typically hesitant to call not purchasing a book by a library ‘censorship’ or ‘banning’ but there are some interesting questions raised by this controversy. One is that this book is a Newberry Award winner, and the typical practice of these libraries is to order a copy or two of all Newberry books. Changing that policy, based upon the use of an objectionable word is, in my opinion quite questionable.
The second issue here, to me at least, is that ’scrotum’ should not be considered an ‘objectionable’ word. It is the clincal name for the body part in question, and while some children may in fact not know this, I am absolutely sure that they know other terms, that most would consider more objectionable, for this body part.
I have never fully understood the idea that children should be sheltered from knowledge concerning the mechanics of reproduction, let alone names for body parts. It seems to me that by making this unknown and special ‘adult knowledge’ it simply adds to the mystery and desirability of this knowledge. If I wanted to make sure that kids were interested in the subject, making it something you will learn about when you are older would be the first method I would choose.
I don’t believe knowledge of this type would cause kids to ‘lose their innocence’ or harm them in any way.
Remembering what it was like to be that age, though, I’m sure I would have giggled to see “scrotum” in that book. Heck, we giggled about the swear words that were in the old Scrabble dictionary.