Those of you not up on the world of children's literature may not have heard of the Newbery Medal -- but then again, some of you might have, as it's basically the Pulitzer of the genre. This year, the award was given to the book "The Higher Power of Lucky," by Susan Patron. I haven't read it. I don't have any plans to. So why did this get my attention?
Ah, the power of words. (For those without online NY Times access, a less detailed version of the story is here.) On page one, the author has included the word "scrotum," much to the apparent outrage of people from sea to shining sea. And my mind is practically paralyzed by the various responses I have to this.
The book won a Newbery Medal. I read a few winners of this award back in the day, and they were all very good. So can anyone allow for the possibility (probability) that there's some good content in this book if you can just get past page one and into the real meat of it?
Who does the author think she's kidding? She says in this article that this was based on a true incident involving a friend’s dog. But she's clearly just trying to be controversial and push some paper to put a passage like this in the book: "Scrotum sounded to Lucky like something green that comes up when you have the flu and cough too much. It sounded medical and secret, but also important." Come on, but that's just primed to make a kid wonder "what's a scrotum?"
Assuming they don't already know. I'm pretty sure I knew by that age. Granted, that could be a matter of gender. I'm just saying, there are some parents out there totally deluding themselves about what some of their kids do or don't do, know or don't know, say or don't say.
And even if you are offended by the use of such a word in a children's book (which you personally are entitled to be, if it's your kid you don't want reading it), a response like this one from a teacher in Durango, Colorado is preposterous: "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." Howard Stern? Puh-lease.
And by the way, I love, love, love that the picture of the author in that article shows her dog sitting next to her. Perfect.
3 comments:
I know, I know, I keep saying how amazed I am at all this censorship bullshit... but it's still true. I just can't get over it.
Things are SO different in Quebec. It's amazing we're even on the same landmass. All of the Americans I know individually (and I know quite a few) would laugh at the matter and show some balls (pun intended). But it seems the American People as an anonymous mass has absolutely zero tolerance for anything.
And it keeps amazing me.
(Mind you, we've got our "anonymous Quebecois mass" problems too, but not about this.)
FKL
I dunno, man... The longer I'm over here, the more I want to stay... The good news is: if we get any more sexually backward in America, we'll Darwin ourselves out of existance... which should come as quite a surprise to our senetors whom believe that Darwinism doesn't exist...
---Guy (Whom just went through that update thingie and can't seem to remember his Blogger ID password...)
Incredulous! If she had written "balls" or some other slang I could understand a parent's concern but scrotum is the medical term for that body part, surely?
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