Higher Power of Censorship
Susan Patron is one of the speakers at the conference I'm at. She wrote last year's Newbery Winner, The Higher Power of Lucky. You may remember the associated furor over the inclusion of the word "scrotum" (a dog's, mind you), which I commented on briefly. She'll be speaking during one of the lunches so as to remind this group of important things like the part where we are meant to be librarians and not raving lunatics who freak out over the idea of the word scrotum existing in books or on mammals. Not that I think we couldn't do with a few less scroti in the world, because we sure could.
She's having a book signing later today. Thing is, I didn't actually love her book. So I don't know if I want to buy it. If I do, though, I want her to sign her name and then write the word SCROTUM on the title page. Because then my copy will say it four times instead of three.
I'm Steph, a librarian and mom of 3 (not sure how that happened). Let's chat books, food, Sumptuous Literary Adaptations, poop, knitting and maybe some crazy Mormon Feminism.
12 comments:
Speaking of scroti, have you heard about the anti-scroti legislation in the Florida Senate? http://www.tallahassee.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080417/CAPITOLNEWS/80417017&referrer=FRONTPAGECAROUSEL
[I don't know how to do the links. Sorry.]
You finished your first sentence with "at". Tsk tsk. An English major? Where are you at?
Our high council speaker in church Sunday said "vaginally". I was a little surprised. But no one gasped. I would rather live in a country where we can say what we want, even if not everyone likes everything everyone is saying. But I don't really think it works that way so much.
mom
I am so sad that I'm at work today.
Because were I home, I would run the few blocks from my house to the library to bring you my copy so that you can have it autographed with the word SCROTUM. Of course, then I would want to keep it, so you wouldn't get to keep it. But you would get to have the joy of her autographing a book with the word scrotum.
I think you should do it, just for how amusing it might be one day when some hypothetical future person stumbles upon it whilst perusing your bookshelf. Especially if said hypothetical future person were an overly-judgmental neighbor, visiting teacher, or mother-in-law.
sakhmet--I read the story several days ago, and while I think our politicians have better things to do, I'm not sure the banning of said car paraphenelia is such a bad idea. I mean, you wouldn't want people to begin decorating their vehicles with penises, right? I guess you can argue that the truck itself is already a phallic symbol. . .
Aside: one of the politicians opposed to the bill actually had a pair on his car until his wife pointed out that such a thing might be in poor taste when he pulled into his parking space at the capitol building each morning. Ya think? In any event, I think we need to add "has car with balls" on the list of things to NOT look for in a future husband.
I wondered what you'd really thought of the book itself back when you wrote about it and the scrotum of doom.
I too thought it was only sort of so-so.
I liked The Higher Power of Lucky but enjoyed the previous year's Newbery winner, Criss Cross much more. It was a quiet and meditative exploration of early adolescence that felt like a novel that the Buddha may have written, had he grown up in a small American town in the 1970s. Excellent, insightful and warm.
But I'm pretty sure that the word SCROTUM never actually appears in its pages.
Such an oversight cannot remain unpunished.
Anonymous, what topic could a high council speaker address that would necessitate the use of the word "vaginally?"
He was describing the birht of his twin sons and said one was taken by C-Section and the other was born vaginally.
heeheehee scrotum
I guess I can live without a ballsack on my truck- as long as those fake limbs hanging from closed trunks are okay.
The first time I saw one was as a missionary at the provo temple parking lot. Friggin sweet.
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