scrotum

My friend, Amy, sent the following NPR article to me this morning:

All Things Considered, February 18, 2007

This year's Newbery Medal winner Susan Patron is under fire because of language in her book The Higher Power of Lucky.

Some school librarians around the country have banned the book because it includes the word "scrotum" to describe where a dog gets a snake bite.

On the first page of the book, the heroine, a 10-year-old girl named Lucky, hears the word through a hole in a wall.

I, for one, am glad to hear it. I'm sick of filthy, dictionary words tainting my young adult fiction.

Ms. Patron, the next time you feel the need to include such a disgusting term, please consider these alternatives: nutsac, onion skin, or testicle-haven. I think such a compromise would please everyone. And that is the point of a book, after all, right?