Lots more scrotums

From Gelf Magazine, a list of youth books that make mention of scrotums. According to librarian Dana Nilsson of Sunnyside Elementary in Durango, Colorado, these novels - including James Herriot's All Creatures Great and Small - don't qualify as "quality literature" for children.

Fav author Neil Gaiman has also weighed in on his blog, stripping such dark Jedi of their librarian badges. Says he:

I've decided that librarians who would decline to have a Newbery book in their libraries because they don't like the word scrotum are probably not real librarians (whom I still love unconditionally). I think they're rogue librarians who have gone over to the dark side.

And there was a nice editorial in the New York Times about the flap. The link will probably require subscription after a day or so, but here's a couple of good graphs:

Speaking of Balzac, it seems a good time to remember that discomfort about words isn’t the fault of the words or of the authors who use them. And that plain old uncynical, workmanlike common nouns lose their naughty aura through unembarrassed use. The alternative — silent ignorance or the baby-talk slang that children acquire as surely as strep and ear infections — seems far less healthy.

With every generation, a new cohort of children begins the journey from ignorance to knowledge. Librarians help those children get there. Some barely make it, and end up toting ignorance as baggage, a sniggering puerility about body parts and functions. Those are the ones who will be drawn to shock radio — not children like the thoughtful, dauntless Lucky Trimble and those lucky enough to have read her book.

Hear, hear.

Read more...

Delicious Scrotum!

There, I said it. Scrotum, scrotum, scrotum.

What's so wrong with that? A lot, apparently. The presence of the word "scrotum" - used in describing the place where a dog is bitten by a rattlesnake - features prominently on the first page of this year's Newbery Award winner, The Higher Power of Lucky by Susan Patron.

Jordan Sonnenblick, the author of Drums, Girls and Dangerous Pie and Notes From the Midnight Driver, started reading objections to The Higher Power of Scrotum on a librarian listserv, and brought the objections - and the noticeable lack of defense - to the attention of a children's lit listserv. The issue got picked up by PublishersWeekly online, and was then covered this weekend by The New York Times. (Who at the same time both fulfilled, and neglected to mention, Jordan's work in bringing attention to the whole fiasco.) The issue has since been blogged at AS IF ("Authors Supporting Intellectual Freedom"), a blog Jordan regularly contributes to.

Said Ms. Patron about her inclusion of the word:

The word is just so delicious. 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.

Says Dana Nilsson, a teacher/librarian at Sunnyside Elementary in Durango, Colorado:

The inclusion of genitalia does not add to the story one bit and that is my objection. Because of that one word, I would not be able to read that book aloud. There are so many other options that the author could have used instead.

So, what, the area from our waist to our thighs doesn't exist? Ever?

What bothers me most about all of this - and there are a great many things that bother me - is that nowhere in all of this is there a real discussion of what is wrong with saying scrotum. Is there a better word to use here? Ah, but that seems not to be the issue. The woman above isn't protesting the use of the word, so much as the use of the area. The issue is the mention of genitalia. The question, it seems, is "Why go there?"

A sexual use of the scrotum in a book for 8-year-olds? No way. I would never argue for such a thing. A reference to pooping or peeing? Sure, I'd go to bat for that. Heck, I put scenes in Samurai Shortstop where kids pee out their windows. After all, excretion is maybe the one thing kids understand from the very start. It's an everyday fact of life. Like Taro Gomi says, Everyone Poops.

But this isn't sex, and it isn't even bodily functions. It's an anatomical description of where a dog was bitten by a rattlesnake. Is this seriously a reason to ban a Newbery-winning book from library shelves? In all this discussion, no one seems to be questioning why a reference to the scrotum is a bad thing. Americans are way too wound up about their bodies and nudity.

I blame the Puritans.

News bulletin to adults worried about the use of scrotum in The Higher Power of Lucky: I knew pretty early on that I had balls, and I knew way better words for them than "scrotum."

Read more...