Oh, Nuts, Roy!

WARNING! To all librarians in Colorado, Missouri and Kentucky, do not, I repeat, DO NOT READ this posting because it contains a VERY BAD word that, apparently, will offend you to the core!

Cover your eyes, Marian, because I’m about to reveal the dirty word that makes an unholy reference to a universal but seldom-discussed male body part. That word is … (last chance to avert your gaze) …

SCROTUM!

Oh, dear god, the nastiness of it all! All of us who chose not to avert our eyes need a mind shower in order to cleanse ourselves of the toxic impact of reading that word.

Most everyone has probably already heard the story about Susan Patron, the Los Angeles City librarian who recently won a Newbery Award for her children’s book entitled, The Higher Power of Lucky. The book was written for the 9 – 11 year old crowd. A Newbery is awarded by the Association for Library Service to Children, a division of the American Library Association.

Ms. Patron, 58, in her round glasses and cardigan sweater, cup of hot tea in hand, appears to be a paradigm of librarian virtue. She is responsible for assembling children’s materials for the L.A. library system. But, she pretty much messed in her Dewey decimal nest by not getting past the first page in her story before referring, ever so briefly, to the scrotum on a dog named Roy.

Lucky, a 10-year old orphan girl and the heroine of the story, overhears a recovering alcoholic recount the low point in his life – getting drunk on rum and falling out of his ’62 Cadillac “when he saw a rattlesnake on the passenger seat biting his dog, Roy, on the scrotum.” Lucky concludes that the word “sounded medical and secret, but important,” which is probably close to what most 10-year old children hearing the word or reading the book would conclude.

As Elmer Fudd would say, “That’s it, folks!” That's the sine qua non of the whole salacious scrotum scandal. No further reference is made; no other passages in the book are being found objectionable, even in Missouri (you’d think the “Show Me” state would be a little more open about the anatomical details surrounding an encounter between a dog and a snake in a Cadillac).

Nonetheless, this egregious error in judgment was enough to raise the hackles on the necks of some curs in various libraries in at least three states. One librarian in Durango, Colorado, Dana Nilsson, went so far as to compare Ms. Patron to shock-jock Howard Stern. Ms. Nilsson, evoking certain stereotypical librarian images, sniffed that people like Ms. Patron and Mr. Stern are trying “to see how far they could push the envelope, but they didn’t have the children in mind. How very sad.” Indeed. Cue the mournful music – Ms. Nilsson has lost whatever common sense she ever had.

Some teachers complained that they were uncomfortable reading the word aloud, while others whined that they didn’t want to get calls from angry parents. After all this baying at the moon about the “disgusting” opening to Lucky’s story, some of these librarians and teachers said they were going to pull the book from their shelves in order to “protect the children”. This would be laughable if it weren’t so ridiculous.

If we collectively made a list of all the things in the world that our children should be protected from seeing and hearing, I wonder where an off-hand reference to a dog’s scrotum would fall on that list. May I suggest somewhere around 9,482nd on the list. The morning newspaper, the evening news, a cross section of prime-time entertainment, any number of video games, and the contents on the average adolescent’s iPod expose kids to about a thousand things a day that are more harmful than mentioning the nut sack on hound dog named Roy.

But, never fear, this is America. Things like this have a way of working themselves out in a free market system that weds capitalism and the First Amendment. Ms. Patron’s book has jumped onto several Best Seller lists, thanks to the likes of Ms. Nilsson. The book is now selling like French postcards in a boy’s locker room.

Happily, a completely unexpected beneficial use has been found for this book. Dog pounds and chapters of the ASPCA are using it to brief dogs on the dangers of hanging out with drunks who drive ’62 Cadillacs. Dogs everywhere now have an opportunity to learn something from the misfortune suffered by Roy. The dogs aren’t sure what the word “scrotum” means. But they’ve concluded that the lesson they’re being taught sounds medical and secret, but important.