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[CCBC-Net] NYTimes.com: Children's Book Stirs Battle With Single Word
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From: Nancegar at aol.com <Nancegar>
Date: Sun, 18 Feb 2007 15:14:53 EST
Right on, Maia!
I just saw the Times article a little while ago and am now looking through the CCBC posts--and have been impressed at how very sensible most of them are -- thank goodness, since the Times piece quoted a couple of librarians who seem surprisingly--er, Victorian in their attitude toward naming body parts.
The move to out-and-out banning appalls me, but I guess it's not surprising. It sounds as if there's a bandwagon here that's being jumped on, and I hope those of us who are appalled at that will jump on our own bandwagon and speak out against damning an award-winning book necause it contains a single scientifically correct word for a body part that, as Maia says, pretty much all children, even very young ones, are aware of. What on earth is wrong with letting them know what it's called?
And as an author, I'm very annoyed--okay, no, furious--at the reporter who wrote the article and said, "Authors of children's books sometimes sneak in a single touchy word or paragraph, leaving librarans to choose whether to ban an entire book over one offending phrase." Now maybe she didn't really mean to accuse us of double-dealing here, but t sure sounds like that. In any case, I don't know any authors who "sneak in" either words or paragraphs; most of us work pretty hard to find words and write paragraphs that say exactly what we mean to say, openly and clearly. Seems to me "scrotum" is exactly the right word for what Susan Patron is describing!
Nancy (Garden)
____________________________________________ Please visit my website at www.nancygarden.com ENDGAME is now available. See website for an excerpt. GOOD MOON RISING is back in print!
Received on Sun 18 Feb 2007 02:14:53 PM CST
Date: Sun, 18 Feb 2007 15:14:53 EST
Right on, Maia!
I just saw the Times article a little while ago and am now looking through the CCBC posts--and have been impressed at how very sensible most of them are -- thank goodness, since the Times piece quoted a couple of librarians who seem surprisingly--er, Victorian in their attitude toward naming body parts.
The move to out-and-out banning appalls me, but I guess it's not surprising. It sounds as if there's a bandwagon here that's being jumped on, and I hope those of us who are appalled at that will jump on our own bandwagon and speak out against damning an award-winning book necause it contains a single scientifically correct word for a body part that, as Maia says, pretty much all children, even very young ones, are aware of. What on earth is wrong with letting them know what it's called?
And as an author, I'm very annoyed--okay, no, furious--at the reporter who wrote the article and said, "Authors of children's books sometimes sneak in a single touchy word or paragraph, leaving librarans to choose whether to ban an entire book over one offending phrase." Now maybe she didn't really mean to accuse us of double-dealing here, but t sure sounds like that. In any case, I don't know any authors who "sneak in" either words or paragraphs; most of us work pretty hard to find words and write paragraphs that say exactly what we mean to say, openly and clearly. Seems to me "scrotum" is exactly the right word for what Susan Patron is describing!
Nancy (Garden)
____________________________________________ Please visit my website at www.nancygarden.com ENDGAME is now available. See website for an excerpt. GOOD MOON RISING is back in print!
Received on Sun 18 Feb 2007 02:14:53 PM CST
