Opinion: Don’t say the S-word

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Within weeks of winning the prestigious Newbery Medal for children’s literature--and getting a write-up on our editorials page--Los Angeles librarian Susan Patron is in the news again. This time, as School Me! blogger Bob Sipchen notes, it’s thanks to some sensitive readers who couldn’t make it past a particular word in ‘The Higher Power of Lucky’’s second paragraph: ‘Sammy told of the day when he had drunk half a gallon of rum listening to Johnny Cash all morning in his parked ’62 Cadillac, then fallen out of the car when he saw a rattlesnake on the passenger seat biting his dog, Roy, on the scrotum.’

A number of American classics have been challenged for their liberal use of the N-word (good thing Jesse Jackson simply cut to the chase by seeking to ban the word itself). The 1978 Newbery Medal winner-turned-adventure-film ‘A Bridge to Terabithia’ sparked controversy with its irreligious use of the word ‘lord’. But getting huffy over an anatomical term sets a new low for would-be book-banning hysterics (who, apparently, don’t mind the title character’s loitering around AA meetings).

As the editorial noted, a Newbery means a children’s book will stay in print and in schools for years to come. The only thing that might help make it a more permanent fixture--like Terabithia before it--is a little controversy.