For most librarians I know, this sort of thing is just embarrassing, like having a family argument broadcast on America's Funniest Home Videos. Most librarians are not horrified by the word scrotum. Most librarians have had to clean much worse graffiti off of walls, books, and furniture. Most librarians have larger concerns, like the threat of local, state and federal legislators conspiring to keep us from offering any kind of useful computer services to our patrons, but that's a rant for another day.
In the midst of this controversy, a children's book catalog was accidentally delivered to my inbox. The back cover promoted several cheerful looking kids books, including one which instantly grabbed my attention. I hurried over to the librarian in charge of buying children's materials and begged her to add it to the collection. It's called Let's Look at Animal Bottoms, and features a full-color display of several elephant behinds on the cover.
Times like these I realize it's probably for the best that I never became a children's librarian. I feel I'm lacking some inherent diplomacy necessary to navigate the rocky shoals of children's lit. My impulse to a scandal like the one over The Higher Power of Lucky is to organize an All Animal Bottoms story time, featuring classic stories like The Truth About Poop and Walter the Farting Dog. No doubt the library would have some cranky parents on their hands, but I tell you what, if it were up to the kids, it would be a smash hit.
Article comments
1 - GL Hauptfleisch
Enjoyable piece, highly amusing. You know, for a article about, um, well...you know...
2 - Katie McNeill
This is a great article! I had no idea any of this was going on and it just makes me want to read the book that much more.
3 - ffakerson
Ugh! Next thing you know you'll be telling me that it's okay to use words like "ovary", "navel" or "duodenum" in children's stories.
4 - jaz
rectum?...damn nearkilled 'em"
thanks for the fun read...
/golfclap
the Tao ofD'oh.
(don't play the link in the library!)
5 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
I cannot believe that a DOG's scrotum is the center of a controversy like this! Watching dogs is the way lots of kids learn about sex.
Man!!!
6 - Brad Blake
If the dog was bit in the scrotum by a rattler, what are you going to say? He was bit in his "dingleberries", his "ballsack", his "genetailia", his "thing that hangs off his other thingy", his "thing the doctor pushes when he or she says 'cough'", or what?
Undoubtedly the same uptight, right-wing, book burning types who elected U Know Who.
7 - Natalie Bennett
This article has been selected for syndication to Advance.net, which is affiliated with newspapers around the United States. Nice work!
And definitely not bollocks. (Sorry, couldn't resist...)
8 - MAOZ
"Book Drives Librarians Nuts!"
Pun intended?