What'll They Do Next, Ban Balzac?

Yesterday's New York Times had an article about the latest scourge to ravage the fragile little minds of the nation's children - the word "scrotum." The word appears in The Higher Power of Lucky, by Susan Patron, which won the 2007 Newbery Medal for children's literature. In what smut-minded way has Patron used this offensive prose? Well:

Yet there it is on the first page of 'The Higher Power of Lucky,' by Susan Patron, this year’s winner of the Newbery Medal, the most prestigious award in children’s literature. The book’s heroine, a scrappy 10-year-old orphan named Lucky Trimble, hears the word through a hole in a wall when another character says he saw a rattlesnake bite his dog, Roy, on the scrotum.

'Scrotum sounded to Lucky like something green that comes up when you have the flu and cough too much,' the book continues. 'It sounded medical and secret, but also important.'

This has led to several school librarians across the country refusing to stock the book (traditionally, a Newbery Medal is a ticket straight to the shelves of school libraries). All because Patron had the temerity to use an anatomical term to describe part of a dog's anatomy. In the middle of this freak out, at least someone is maintaining a level head:

Pat Scales, a former chairwoman of the Newbery Award committee, said that declining to stock the book in libraries was nothing short of censorship.

'The people who are reacting to that word are not reading the book as a whole,' she said. 'That’s what censors do — they pick out words and don’t look at the total merit of the book.'

Are we that uptight in this country?!? Have we come to the point that nobody teaches their kids what naughty bits are actually called? Sadly, it appears so. Earlier this month, a woman in Florida complained that a local theater was promoting The Vagina Monologues by actually putting the name of the play on the marquee. She was moved to complain when her 9-year old niece asked her what a vagina was. According to the theater manager, the woman was offended that she had to answer the question. The theater briefly, and in jest, changed the sign to promote The Hoohaa Monologues!

They've come for the scrotums, they've come for the vaginas. Can even Balzac be safe in 21st Century America?