The Higher Power of Lucky

I was reading Publishers Weekly yesterday and discovered to my surprise that there is flap brewing regarding the new Newberry Award Winner, Susan Patron's The Higher Power of Lucky. Since I just finished reading it and thought it sweet I was rather stymied about what could possibly be offensive. Turns out there are schools and libraries who are refusing to carry it because it contains one word.

Reading that you are probably thinking does this kids book drop the F-bomb? What the hell? No, the word in question is scrotum.

That's right, scrotum.

As in the pouch of skin containing the testicles.

As in the line (from page one no less) "Sammy told of the day when he had drunk half a gallon of rum listening to Johnny Cash all morning in his parked '62 Caddy and fallen out of the car when he saw a rattlesnake on the passenger seat biting his dog, Roy, on the scrotum."

That's right, it's not even a human scrotum in question. Librarians are going to deny young readers access to the book judged the best of 2006 because of one line about dog anatomy. Yeah, that makes sense.

Now I'm no parent but I'm pretty sure that most 8-12 year olds (the intended age group for this book) already know what a scrotum is and if they didn't probably wouldn't be too tramatized by discovering its meaning. And after having read the book myself there are so many more things to talk about with kids reading it-all the 12 step horror stories Lucky overhears at her job cleaning up the local meeting hall (many far more harrowing than poor Sammy's), her search for a Higher Power to give her life stability (a concept she picks up from those same meetings) and the terrifying accident that has left her motherless and thus in need of stability-to name just a few.

Is The Higher Power of Lucky the best Newberry winner I've ever read? No, but it's worthy of that gold seal and should be allowed to find a readership not afraid of a single word.