One Day at a Time

Several more days of emails have passed since the initial kerfuffle about "scrotum" in a children's book. Some fo them today have reminded me of a priceless pencil holder from my favorite Great Dane artist:

Click for a larger view, and even better, buy one from Louise on her site.

Humor aside, though, this is a very serious issue. I suspect that the majority of people truly believe that the people offended by the book are being silly. But they are being vocal, and once again, the people who are actually *right* (i.e., correct, having the proper opinion, smarter than the others, etc.) are being too quiet, assuming that no one will do anything stupid because of a vocal minority. But that's where we're wrong. We need to be writing about it, speaking about it, letting SCROTUMS be SCROTUMS in stories, whether written for 1st grade or senior citizens.

Here's a letter I just composed for the child-lit listserv, in response to a note from Jane Yolen, an author whom I very much enjoy and respect:

I am brand new to the list, not a librarian, nor a parent. But I am an independent thinker, and think that this is a very important discussion to be having. Those of us who favor open access to intellectual ideas are probably in the majority, as the poll on the Chicago site suggested. However, we still have a very vocal minority who are able to push prejudiced and sometimes even dangerous policies and laws through the various channels. Why does this happen? Because we know it is so silly that we don't respond to the arguments that we know are silly. We're too nice. We call a "scrotum" a "scrotum," and just can't imagine that anyone has a problem with that.

I've been reading this thread with interest (I wore an "I read banned books" button in the 4th grade). By and large, everyone who has posted to the list has been in agreement that the argument is silly. The ones who deserve the applause are those who went public, whether by blogging or writing to the newspapers, or perhaps even making suggestions to their own librarians or districts about the merits of the book itself.

And, because it is related to both scroti (? I don't really know the proper plural) and dogs, my favorite dog artist created a "Nutty Penholder" (visible here http://www.danesculptor.com/gallery/functional/nutty/index.html) and was also the subject of a very similar dispute when some people in Manitou Springs objected to her statue of a Great Dane rolling on his back and, yes, displaying the scrotum for even young children to see. (Here is one news article about the story: http://csindy.com/csindy/2007-01-18/news2.html). [**UPDATE: Peterson's website also includes links to articles about the incident]

Silly though it may be, this is a very real issue that has ramifications far beyond a few librarians' decisions not to order the book because of a word choice.

Danielle Tisinger
University of Minnesota
----- Original Message -----
From: JaneYolen
To:
Sent: Thursday, February 22, 2007 12:17 PM
Subject: Re: [child_lit] Newbery "Peer Pressure" Among Librarians?

I have written this in my journal, lest you think I am unaware of what is going on:

Came home to a huge fooforah concerning the word "scrotum" on the first page of Susan Patron's Newbery winning THE HIGHER POWER OF LUCKY. As someone put it, "A testicle in a teapot." It really is awfully silly. And not as if she were using bad language. That's the official term after all. And she was referring to a dog, not a man. But there were articles in the Times and USA Today and all through the blogosphere about the truly silly librarians who have been upset about this. Except for this paragraph, I am refusing to dignify the discussion by writing to various blogs and lists or to either the Times or USA Today. Enough already.