As a music and film librarian, kids' books are not my area of expertise. Lately, however, controversy has gripped the library world over a kids' book, and like the wreck of a clown car, it's been impossible to look away.

This particular controversy is about the use of a word. A word which, in the opinion of some, utterly negates any value of the story. Although the book, The Higher Power of Lucky, impressed the Newbery Award Committee enough to honor it, this word is making it impossible for some librarians to read the book aloud, to recommend it to children, even to carry it in their collections.

The word is "scrotum."

The first I heard of this was a column in Publisher's Weekly, discussing the fact that certain library Listservs were aflame with this nightmare. I had to re-read the article several times to confirm that the controversy is, in fact, about the actual word "scrotum", and not the use of some other euphemism for the word scrotum more often found on made-for-cable series about cowboys or gangsters. Alas, the controversy really is about the word "scrotum."

"Because of that one word," said a school librarian, "I would not be able to read that book aloud." Some complained that the use of the word was totally unnecessary. Some implied that there were many other choices the author could have used instead.

I like contemplating this plethora of words the author could have used instead of scrotum, which is the anatomically accurate name for a specific body part. None come to mind that are not on that aforementioned list of premium cable euphemisms guaranteed to get your average 10-year-old mouth washed out with soap.

Armchair editing like this drives me bonkers. "The author ought to have used this word instead of that word." "The author used a word that was 'unnecessary,'" as if the selection of words, specific words in a specific order, is not the very definition of what it means to be an author. It's like saying it was unnecessary for Picasso to use so much blue paint. It's ridiculous to argue that an author used a word, any word, "unnecessarily." They used the words that they used.

Under normal circumstances, it might have been years, possibly never, before I got around to reading this year's Newbery Award winner, but fortunately controversy made reading it a vital necessity. One does not have to go far into The Higher Power of Lucky to find the word. It's right there, on page one. Our heroine overhears a dramatic story about a man whose dog was bit on the scrotum by a rattlesnake.

If I'd thought the controversy was silly before, reading the context elevated it to positively asinine. We're not even talking about a human scrotum, but a canine one, similar to any one of the millions presently on display in living rooms, yards and parks across the country. I had assumed based on the level of hysteria that the scrotum was perhaps doing something vaguely offensive or scatological, instead of valiantly withstanding the attack of a rattler. Considering the average dog's propensity for doing embarrassing things to their privates, usually in public, this particular scrotum is positively heroic.