People Are Stupid, Children's Literature Edition

[naomikritzer]

This year's Newberry Award winner, The Higher Power of Lucky, has the word "scrotum" on the first page. Apparently this is controversial. From the NY Times article: "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."

Now, this isn't the Caldecott Medal, which is given to picture books. The Newberry Award is given to middle-grade children's books, which are written for elementary schoolers, predominantly older elementary schoolers. I routinely use the 1944 winner, Johnny Tremain, as an example of a book that I would not steer Molly towards just yet -- it's a great book, but it includes a lot of disturbing material that isn't terribly appropriate for a six-year-old, even a six-year-old who's a very proficient reader. The word "scrotum" isn't in it, but there are all sorts of evocative explanations of medical care in a pre-anaesthesia era which I found remarkably disturbing at ten.

But when it comes to disturbing material, Johnny Tremain has nothing on some of the other award winners. In The Giver (1994 winner) the protagonist sees his father give a lethal injection to a baby who had the bad judgment to be born as a twin. Number the Stars (1990 winner) is about the Holocaust. It has no scenes of gas chambers, but still, there is no way that explaining a scrotum is harder than explaining why the Jewish family in the book is so terrified of being taken away by the Germans. Of the Newberry winners I've read, though, the "most disturbing ever" prize goes hands-down to Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry (1977 winner), which includes the LYNCHING OF A CHILD.

But OMG call the press, the latest winner has the word SCROTUM in it.

If your middle-grade-book-reading kid asks what SCROTUM means and you're too much of a repressed weirdo to just explain it, can't you have them look it up in the dictionary?

Maybe you don't own a dictionary, though. Those have all kinds of dirty words inside.

Comments

[sylvia-rachel.livejournal.com]

Good freaking grief.

There's a list of past Newberry winners at this link: http://www.ala.org/ala/alsc/awardsscholarships/literaryawds/newberymedal/newberywinners/medalwinners.htm. I've read quite a few of the books on this list, and, in addition to the ones you mention, I remember most of them containing incidents or addressing concepts a whole lot more disturbing and/or difficult to explain to a child than the word "scrotum".

Sometimes I just really wonder what the people who make these decisions are using to think with, since it's clearly not their brains ...

[naomikritzer]

I started to say that they think their scrotums, but women are just as guilty of this as men, so let's go with their buttocks. Everyone's got a butt, and can choose to think with it if they'd like to be a butthead.

[sylvia-rachel.livejournal.com]

That would explain it, all right ...

[pixelfish.livejournal.com]

Wow. I never read Roll of Thunder, so I had no idea about the lynching.

I'm about as astounded over people getting upset by scrotum as I was over the lady in Florida who was upset that she had to explain Vagina to her niece after seeing a billboard for the Vagina Monologues. It's ANATOMY! Half the population has one.

Also this paragraph annoys me:

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.

Riiiiiiight. Because people who write children's literature spend all their time trying to figure out the best ways to subtly offend librarians. I'm sure that was exactly what was going through their heads as they wrote. I think all the time, "That sentence is totally going to have the Albany PTA's knickers in a twist. And librarians in Concord...they're gonna go ballistic." Then I rub my hands together and cackle with evil glee for putting one over on librarians and censors.

[haddayr.livejournal.com]

Oh for Christ sakes.

[winterswitchery.livejournal.com]

Oh cripes.

Your post is fabulous.

[penmage.livejournal.com]

Hah. CNN called the store today, to ask if anyone had "made a fuss about a certain word used in The Higher Power of Lucky."

Ridiculous.

[naomikritzer]

Had anyone?

[lenora-rose.livejournal.com]

You know it's only because it was on the first page. If it had been on page 50, it would have got by.

I wish I were joking. Steven Gould's Jumper has been banned or almsot banned due to its opening scene, too. And I know it's far easier to launch me from a story with an error if it's in chapter one, because I'm usually reading the words more consciously, and I'd be much more likely to notice the word scrotum even being on the page (Not that I'd care or wish to ban the book, but I might notice.)

Someons should point them to the historic picture-book about the last Empress of China that includes discussion and explanation what eunuchs are and what was done to them. :)

[naomikritzer]

Of COURSE it's only because it's on the first page. I wrote and then edited out a final paragraph to this post noting that the people who ban books seldom read past page 10, so as long as all salacious content (not that "scrotum" even qualifies) is on page 11 or later you're in the clear. This is why Phillip Pullman stayed off the book-banning brigade's radar for so long; you have to read a long way in before you get to the bits that would make their heads explode.

[sylvia-rachel.livejournal.com]

I confess I had wondered about that...

[mindyklasky.livejournal.com]

Naomi - This post is *wonderful*! Mark and I have been talking about the NYT article all morning. I was going to blog about it, but I really can't say anything better than you've already said it.

[kryslavalle.livejournal.com]

"Maybe you don't own a dictionary, though." -- I think this may be the problem.

What confuses me is that some librarians are all freaking out about it. From what I've seen, it's not even talking about a human's scrotum, it's a dog's. So it's not like there's male nudity and the ten year old girl is seeing it or something. Cause if the book opened with like a little girl and a little boy exploring each other's genitalia, I could probably understand where people are coming from at least, though still not support the fuss.

[naomikritzer]

Yes, it's a dog's scrotum.

[terrie01.livejournal.com]

As a librarian, I would say it's an important detail that it's all happening at school libraries. Because a school stands in loco parentis, they are much more vulnerable to parental demands.

[kryslavalle.livejournal.com]

Ahh, is it only school libraries? I can understand where they might have to watch what comes in. I also read that one librarian would feel uncomfortable reading the book aloud.

Do school libraries have sections of "this is appropriate for this age" though? Maybe they could put it at a higher, mature reader level if they are worried.

[http://users.livejournal.com/aseop_/]

Personally, I think "The Giver" is a great science fiction novel. It reminds me of R.A. Bradbury and 1984 and other famous sci-fi novels about futuristic societies that pretend to be perfect but are actually messed up. The short story "The Lottery" also comes to mind. Maybe "The Giver" isn't appropriate for young children, but the killing of the baby was more implied than graphic, and I love the moral of the story.

"Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry" is another book I read in middle school, and loved. I think of it is a black counter-part to "To Kill a Mockingbird". For the record, T.J. does not get lynched, he gets saved at the last minute, though in the sequel "Let the Cirle be Unbroken" he is tried for burglery and convicted. The oppression of blacks is more graphic in this series than in Mockingbird, but I didn't think it was over the top.

But I admit reading these as a middle schooler is a lot different than reading them as a 6 year old child. At Molly''s age my mother was reading me Narnia and Tolkien, and I found those plenty scary enough.

[naomikritzer]

I liked The Giver a lot, don't get me wrong. I'm just saying, it's WAY more disturbing than a dog's scrotum. Ditto Roll of Thunder, which I agree is an excellent book and a good counterpart to To Kill a Mockingbird. (My recollection was that TJ got beaten really, really badly but that you found out in the sequel that he survived and wasn't actually killed. Did I misremember? It's been a loooooooong time.) When looking for books for Molly, I shy away from books where scary awful stuff happens to characters you like.

Scrotums, on the other hand, are fine. Especially dog scrotums.

[http://users.livejournal.com/aseop_/]

I only read the first half of "Let the Circle Be Unbroken" before I got distracted by something else, but referencing wikipedia I see that while T.J. was saved from being lynched in the first book, in the sequel he is tried for the murder, convicted and sentenced to death. Ouch.

I'm fine with scrotums, though it's not a word I use much in my daily conversation. I understand about not wanting Molly to read books that are too adult or upsetting. I actually found Johnny Tremain to be more dull than disturbing. I don't remember many books upsetting me as a kid, although I remember one fantasy where the female harpy-like protagonist falls in love with a prince, and captures him at his wedding (turning his bride to stone) only to discover that he doesn't love her, and that to restore his bride to life, she had to kill herself in turn. (I can't remember the title for the life of me) Anyway, I still don't do tragic romances.

[naomikritzer]

Scrotum isn't really a word that's I've really heard outside medical contexts all that often in the past.

I kind of wonder if that's going to change, though, as ten-year-olds across America joyously discover that it's a word that greatly upsets a certain group of adults.

As a kid, I disliked sad books and would mostly just avoid them unless ambushed. I didn't know The Yearling was going to be sad until I read it. Ditto Old Yeller. On the other hand, A Summer to Die was pretty obvious, so I avoided that one for years. There are also key phrases that I learned to look for in the description on the back that would make me drop a book like a hot potato. "Bittersweet" usually meant "depressing tragedy ahead." Anything billed as a coming-of-age story was probably bad news.

I did read Bridge to Terabithia and liked it enough to read more by the author, but a book had to be really damn good to make up for a sad ending.

[(Anonymous)]

As an 11 or 12 year old (a bit over 30 years ago), my friends & I spent a whole summer whispering 'scrotum' to each other and falling down laughing.

But this is my very favorite comment on the "Scrotum Brouhaha" so far: <

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As an 11 or 12 year old (a bit over 30 years ago), my friends & I spent a whole summer whispering 'scrotum' to each other and falling down laughing.

But this is my very favorite comment on the "Scrotum Brouhaha" so far: <<My thought: Oh for Chrissake will you people [you people who are flipping out over using "scrotum" that is] chill out! Makes me want to write a picture book called "The Happy Ball Sack" or "The Prunes between your Legs.">> LOL. From one of the comments here: http://newberryproject.blogspot.com/2007/02/newbery-controversy.html

Sandy D. (aka Zea)

[ricevermicelli.livejournal.com]

"the killing of the baby was more implied than graphic..."

You must have a very different memory of this scene than I do. IIRC (which I might not), Jonas watches a recording of his father weighing twin infants, determining which is smaller, injecting something into a vein on the smaller infant's head, and then disposing of the dead infant's body (I think there's a cardboard box and a disposal chute leading to an incinerator). During parts of this scene, Jonas's father talks fondly to the baby he's about to kill ("you are too teeny!") Lethal injection isn't terribly graphic, as ways to die go, but there's precious little implication in the incident.

I still think it's fine for children to read "The Giver". I wouldn't hand it to a ten year-old, but nor would I take it away. It should certainly be in the library, and I'm perfectly fine with it being part of a junior high curriculum.

[http://users.livejournal.com/aseop_/]

Sorry, I blame fuzzy memory. It's been a while since I read it.

[cnoocy]

Interestingly, Becca teaches both The Giver and Roll of Thunder to her (7th grade) students every year.

[naomikritzer]

Both are totally appropriate for 12-year-olds, IMO. I was giving them as examples not of BAD books or INAPPROPRIATE books but as books that contain things likely to really disturb very young children, and raise questions far more difficult than "Mom, what's a scrotum?"

The Giver is particularly worth reading in a middle-school English class because interpretations of it are so diverse. Most adults who read it think the kids die at the end (that was not in fact the author's intent -- there's now a sequel where apparently you find out that they reached safety) and someone posted a comment here once about reading the book as a kid and getting really angry at the protagonist for being so cruel as to spoil this lovely utopic setting (they noted that they were kind of a messed-up kid). It's hard to find a book accessible to a 12-year-old audience that inspires such variant feelings, but "how I read this is different from how you read this" is one of the most important things to learn about reading literature.

[sylvia-rachel.livejournal.com]

I read the NYT article again this morning, and two passages leapt out at me.

“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.”

Seriously? A Grade 3 or 4 teacher would not want her students to know what a scrotum is? So who does Health class with these kids? Because I certainly remember anatomical diagrams on the overhead projector in Grade 4 Health that had, among other things, the scrotum on them. Labelled and everything.

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.”

Here, IMO, is the crux of the problem: people who consider themselves qualified to pass judgement on this book but haven't even read enough of it to realize that the scrotum belongs to a dog.

When I was a young teen (I think -- possibly I was as young as 11 or 12) my friend A's mum took her and our friend R to see the film My Life as a Dog at the local rep theatre. They wanted to see it because I'd seen it several times by then (with my mom, my younger brother, and a family friend) and told them it was a wonderful movie, which in fact it is. However, it also has, quite near the beginning, a somewhat tangential scene in which an older boy dares some younger boys to put a certain body part into the neck of a pop bottle, and the moment she saw this, A's mum picked up both girls by the scruff of the neck and frogmarched them out of the theatre. Similarly, my friend L, when we were 12 or 13, was banned from reading The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3/4 because it mentions nipples.

All of which made me very glad at the time, and makes me even gladder now, that my mother was more sensible.