No Librarian Left Embarrassed, or Silencing the Lambs:

Yup, this is about censorship. Today's New York Times reports on the state of the latest Newberry Award winner, The Higher Power of Lucky, by Susan Patron, a children's book that has terrified school librarians around the country. On its first page, the very beginning of the book, Ms Patron has dared to use the word scrotum!

Now here's the problem: schools around the country regularly order two or more copies of Newberry Award winning books every year. For some reason, foolish librarians have the notion that it is good for our children to read, as long as they don't read anything that might upset them. The them in this case is the school's librarians, teachers, principals, school board members, and two or three parents who are seeking an issue to draw attention to themselves, not the kids.

So what happens after copies of Newberry Award winning books are ordered for the school library? Why teachers, often the librarian, read the books to students. That's right, read them out loud to students. After all, everybody knows kids don't read books themselves. So here's the heart of the problem: No teacher or librarian wants to read that word (scrotum, in case you've forgotten) out loud to a bunch of ten-year-olds who will either giggle out loud or ask the teacher/librarian, "What's a 'scrotum,' Ms Smith, and do you have one?"

Not likely, neither biologically nor metaphorically. Long live the dark ages!

While we're on the topic of books:

Looking for a good read? Go to the library and check out Valerie Martin's The Unfinished Novel and Other Stories (Vintage 2006) and Mary Karr's volume of poetry, Sinners Welcome (HarperCollins 2006). The latter contains an essay well worth your time even if you don't particularly like poetry.

The essay in which Martin examines what led her to converting to Catholicism was originally commissioned for an issue of Poetry, where it appeared last year. But be prepared, the first paragraphs has the word dildo in it. Let us suggest you not read this aloud at the family gathering tonight.

Here's an example of her poetry:

Descending Theology: Christ Human


Such a short voyage for a god,
and you arrived in animal form so as not
to scorch us with your glory.
Your mask was an infant's head on a limp stalk,
sticky eyes smeared blind,
limbs rendered useless in swaddle.
You came among beasts
as one, came into our care of its lack, came crying
as we all do, because the human frame
is a crucifix, each skeletos borne a lifetime.
Any wanting soul lain
prostate on a floor to receive a pouring of sunlight
might—if still enough,
feel your cross buried in the flesh.
One has only to surrender,
you preached, open both arms to the inner,
the ever-present hold,
out-reaching every want. It's in the form
embedded, love adamant as bone.
In a breath, we can bloom and almost be you.


Valerie Martin's book of stories, her tenth book overall, presents the reader with episodes from the lives of six artists of moderate capabilities as they struggle to understand exactly what they've become in life, mid-listers, which may or may not be so bad. The stories, though longish by short story standards, are a quick read, bespeaking of Ms Martin's mastery of prose style rather than a judgement about content. Beware, however, they contain adult themes, and also moderately explicit sex. (If you're still reading books to satisfy your prurient interest in sex, then you're not reading this blog anyway.)