Two things I find especially bizarre about the flap over "scrotum":
1) So many children start using words like "dickhead" and "butt-head" well before the start school. Would librarians have preferred that the Newbery go to a book with THOSE words?
2) Many -- if not most -- child-development experts now encourage parents to start using medically correct words as soon as their children can understand them. Can the librarians be so far behind the psychologists on this one?
Janice Harayda
One-Minute Book Reviews
www.oneminutebookreviews.wordpress.com
Very well put and the dictionary remark had me laughing lol.
I read about this and was flummoxed by all the hoo-ha also, and I'm disappointed in all the "librarians" who aren't stocking a Newbery Award-winning book because of one word that kids probably don't even blink an eye at.
SCROTUM! I said it - said it loud!
If certain people would give their kids a "basic anatomy lesson" before school begins, how big a deal would this be? And I'd like to see an example of "quality literature". I guess Judy Blume doesn't qualify.
You said dictionary. Huh-huh, huh-huh...
And Robin said hoo-ha. (snort!)
This just baffles me. IN particular, why do they think they would have to explain it? If kids didn't know what it was, would they ask? Do they ask about every single word they don't know? I suspect not. And does it affect their enjoyment of the story not to know exactly where the dog was bitten. Sure the ones who know the word (because they are raised by people who are not so uptight they squeak) will get more from the story (and likely wince) but I bet lots of kids will go on blithely thinking the scrotum is some other part of the body altogether. It would be interesting to survey kids about what they think a scrotum is.
My partner would like more north americans to become familiar with the british slang term for this -- "bollocks". Has a nice sound to it. And I suspect if I tell him about this he would comment "What a load of bollocks."
Hey, I just thought you'd find this interesting. I rarely comment, but I am a regular reader 
http://nymag.com/news/features/2...7840/
index.html
Yanno, there are way too many prudes in this country. No wonder people are so screwed up.
Well of course it's shocking to read about a dog's scrotum. Every PETA-loving person in the US knows dogs should have their scrota removed at a very early age so that eventually no poor little doggies will be subjected to life as slaves to humans. What was that dog doing having a scrotum, anyway?
(in case anyone is in doubt, I do not support PETA or their aim of eliminating domesticated animals)
That was a great blog entry!
And you've given me a great idea for a Latin lesson as well.
So, on this note, at my kid's school, which is a Montessori school -- for some reason that point outrages me even more -- my best friend's kid just got hauled up to the office because he *corrected* his classmate's terminology. They're both in kindergarten. The classmate said something about his weiner. My friend's kid said it was actually called a penis, just so he could get it right next time. Bang! He's in the office, being told not to use "that language" at school. Uh? What language? The right kind? (Weiner kid did not, mind you, get any sort of lecture.) WTF? I say.
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