When I was pregnant with my second, I bought my toddler “Mommy Laid an Egg OR Where do Babies Come From?” - a hilariously graphic picture book by the British writer Babette Cole. Zoe loved it. She giggled as the school of sperm swam furiously up to the egg (”C’mon, boys!”) until one emerged victorious (”Gotcha!”) and the rest protested (”We was robbed!”). She chanted along with me as “The baby got bigger, and bigger and BIGGER!” and “The mommy got fatter, and fatter, and FATTER!” It was a fun way to tell her what was going on in my own body and to prepare her for the arrival of her sister.

The babysitter blushed each time Zoe begged her to read it. My husband flat out skipped entire pages (including “Here are some of the ways mommies and daddies fit together”).

So I’m not sure what to make of the flap over “The Higher Power of Lucky” by Susan Patron. (Thanks, Tobi, for sending this on.) Despite winning the prestigious Newbery Medal, the book has been banned by librarians around the country because it contains a word.

The word is “scrotum,” and it appears on Page 1.

When Zoe and I were at Wild Rumpus this morning, I picked up the book. I discovered it’s for 9 to 12-year-olds. I also discovered it’s about a 10-year-old named Lucky whose mother has died. And that the words “alcoholics” and “gamblers” also appear on that infamous first page. I figure if a kid can handle reading about those issues, they can probably handle the word scrotum.

Cribsheeters? What’s acceptable and what’s not in children’s literature?

Update 3/4/07: Susan Patron replies in the LA Times to her critics.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 26th, 2007 at 10:54 pm and is filed under Books, Main. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.