The "Scrotum" Hullabaloo in children's literature

[Squaredancecalling Steve]

from today's NYT:



With One Word, Children’s Book Sets Off Uproar
By JULIE BOSMAN
Published: February 18, 2007


The word “scrotum” does not often appear in polite conversation. Or children’s literature, for that matter.

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.

[Brian Olewnick]

She should've said, "nutsack".

[Jason Bivins]

Huh. I thought this was a thelil thread.

[GoodSpeak]

Well, we all can be thankful the word "boner" isn't included in the book.

[Tom Storer]

People are so fucking stupid. Librarians or parents who would object to their innocent children being exposed to the word "scrotum," I mean.

"Of course all boys have one, dear, but that doesn't mean it isn't something shameful and embarassing. It's time you learned that some parts of the body are just dirty."

[GoodSpeak]

Hm.

As a parent, I think age appropriateness is the issue more so than a discussion of male genitalia.

[Dan G]

Originally Posted by Tom Storer

People are so fucking stupid. Librarians or parents who would object to their innocent children being exposed to the word "scrotum," I mean.

Part of the issue is whether these people are professional librarians, or merely teachers who know the Dewey Decimal System. Real librarians - ones with a master's degree - are generally against censorship, and this would be one of the things they stand up for.

This article got it wrong in the Harry Potter case - librarians were all for having it in school libraries, the "some school officials" were mostly crazy christian conservative school board members who are afraid of people hearing viewpoints that oppose theirs (wouldn't want a kid reading HP, in case it turns them into a witch...). So there's no reason to believe that the people they are calling librarians are trained professionals in that field. With budgets being what they are these days, it is getting hard to find real accredited librarians in schools any more.

[walto]

A lot of people don't know this, but Harry Potter was born with an extra scrotum. In the next book you reportedly find out that Hermione has some kind of a problem with that.

[GoodSpeak]

Originally Posted by Dan G

Part of the issue is whether these people are professional librarians, or merely teachers who know the Dewey Decimal System. Real librarians - ones with a master's degree - are generally against censorship, and this would be one of the things they stand up for.

This article got it wrong in the Harry Potter case - librarians were all for having it in school libraries, the "some school officials" were mostly crazy christian conservative school board members who are afraid of people hearing viewpoints that oppose theirs (wouldn't want a kid reading HP, in case it turns them into a witch...). So there's no reason to believe that the people they are calling librarians are trained professionals in that field. With budgets being what they are these days, it is getting hard to find real accredited librarians in schools any more.

That's a fact, too.

The "librarians" we have now are very nice folks but with nothing more than an Associate Arts degree from a junior college.

[bluenoter]

Originally Posted by GoodSpeak

nothing more than a Associate Arts degree

Goody, what indefinite article do we use before a vowel or a vowel sound?

[moneyp]

Originally Posted by bluenoter

Goody, what indefinite article do we use before a vowel or a vowel sound?

scrotum!

[Ron Thorne]

'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.'

_________________________________

I guess this superbly educated, qualified librarian doesn't know the difference between a man and a dog. How sad.

[GoodSpeak]

Originally Posted by bluenoter

[FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=3][B]Goody, what indefinite article do we use before a vowel or a vowel sound?

Can't type, Blue'.

Haven't you figured that out by now?






Geez.

[patricia]

The whole bruhaha is so unnecessary.
I have always been against any censorship, especially by authoritarian bodies in the government or other organizations.
I grew up with every book in our house, and there were hundreds of them, accessable to my brothers and to me, with no restriction at all.
That doesn't mean that I read all of them.
But I did read Lady Chatterly's Lover when I was twelve, as well as some Henry Miller.
But, if I was reading a book and a word, like scrotum appeared and I didn't know what it meant, I asked one of my parents and they would give me a short, specific definition.
If it was a slang term, considered vulgar, they would tell me that it wasn't used in our house.
They would then tell me the the correct word.
Then we all went on with our lives.
I don't think that knowing the correct terms for parts of the body damaged my psyche, although it did save time for my parents.
They weren't stuck, years later, with having to update cute euphemisms for perfectly adequate words.
Right or wrong, I have raised my two daughters the same way and, as far as I know, they have benefitted from being treated like thinking human beings.
What nonsense!!

[Ron Thorne]

In a word, this non-issue is . . . pathetic.

[Tom Storer]

Originally Posted by GoodSpeak

Hm.

As a parent, I think age appropriateness is the issue more so than a discussion of male genitalia.

I haven't read "The Higher Power of Lucky," but it won a prestigious award for children's books and even the protectors of innocence who reign supreme in school libraries seem to agree that it's just dandy except for that awful word. So as a parent, I ask you: at what age does it become appropriate for children to read a book that mentions anatomy?

It's not like they don't already know there are scrotums out there in the big, bad world. Plenty of them.

And can you imagine the uproar if they had mentioned female genitalia? The author would be blacklisted for life. A friend of mine was indignant when she learned that many girls actually are never taught the simple, anatomical words for their own genitalia. She said she was going to write a book called "It's Called A Vulva" but I told her it would have to be "They're Called Vulva" and she got mad at me.

[Ron Thorne]

Once more, I'll mention the fact that "librarian" Dana Nillson characterized the mention of the dreaded word "scrotum" in this book as something related to "men's genitalia". Did she even bother to read the book?

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

That response tells me all I need to know about this woman!

[tippy]

Originally Posted by Brian Olewnick

She should've said, "nutsack".

I kinda like "Roy's fleshy protrusion of evil."

[Gary Sisco]

Yeah, she doesn't want to start a "censorship thing"; she just wants to censor.

This is so stupid and reactionary there's really nothing else to say about it.

A sign of the times. My generation has surpassed the imaginary tv families of its childhood in dimwitted squareness. They don't seem to have judgment. Everything is ones and zeros.

Treat people like infants and then one day suddenly expect them to be and act like adults. We can already see its results -- infant brains in adult bodies.

That said, they could have just said "bag" ...

[tippy]

Look at the tv they watch and the computer games they play. Puhleeze if scrotum biting can get the kids to read...

[Gary Sisco]

Some of my parent friends have told me that teenagers here don't view oral sex as "having sex" with someone.

Jeez. I spent most of my teenage years trying to convince girls of just that.

Ahead of my time as always.....

[steve(thelil)]

Scrotum? Boy!

[hornplayer]

Originally Posted by Tom Storer

People are so fucking stupid. Librarians or parents who would object to their innocent children being exposed to the word "scrotum," I mean.

"Of course all boys have one, dear, but that doesn't mean it isn't something shameful and embarassing. It's time you learned that some parts of the body are just dirty."

Just another example of a bunch of folks making much ado about nothing. If they weren't making such a stink, who would have even nnoticed?

Another way to make kids ashamed of their bodies???? just what we need... NOT!!!

[Root Doctor]

I'd anticipate an uproar if Lucky was trying to suck the venom out.

[steve(thelil)]

That lady sounds like a real scrotumbusting female canine.




Sorry about my language.

[Dennis Gonzalez]

Originally Posted by Ron Thorne

In a word, this non-issue is . . . pathetic.

In the literature, known as "scrotal pathos".

[Dennis Gonzalez]

Let me ask this: What if the author had written, "The snake bit my dog, Checkers, on her labia." ??? Would that have caused an uproar with any of you?

[Dan G]

Originally Posted by Dennis Gonzalez

Let me ask this: What if the author had written, "The snake bit my dog, Checkers, on her labia." ??? Would that have caused an uproar with any of you?

Yes, because Checkers is a good name for a male dog, not a female.

[shrugs]

Originally Posted by tippy

meanwhile junior high kids are engaging in oral and anal sex to spare their virginity

I believe that is one of the main arguments against abstinence only teaching. Especially when the contracts come into play. The kids just pick different entry strategies,

[Gentle Giant]

Originally Posted by Dennis Gonzalez

Let me ask this: What if the author had written, "The snake bit my dog, Checkers, on her labia." ??? Would that have caused an uproar with any of you?

Depends. Majora or minora?