Twigs, Berries and The Newberry Medal

There’s a crisis brewing in children’s literature. It seems the Susan Patron, the 2007 recipient of the prestigious Newberry Medal, chose to use the word scrotum on the first page of her award winning book, The Higher Power of Lucky. Librarians are taking sides and the story even made the front page of this morning’s New York Times. I didn’t give the matter a lot of thought until I read further along and learned of the author’s penchant for the word’s musical, aesthetic qualities.

The word is just so delicious. The sound of the word to Lucky is so evocative. It’s one of those words that’s so interesting because of the sound of the word.

As a pediatrician-father of a school-aged boy I’m not averse to discussing the details of anatomy. I'll risk my reputation, however, and come down on the side that scrotum probably doesn’t belong in vernacular of most children. Delicious or not.

For more coverage of both sides of this check out Librarian.net