I am so glad to be moving out of Kentucky. I know that stupid, small-minded people are everywhere, but Kentucky seems to have quite their share. One of which is a local Louisville librarian named Wendy Stolls who is one of the librarians who has chosen not to stock a Newberry Award winning book called The Higher Power of Lucky because it includes the word scrotum (but not even a person’s scrotum…it is a dog that gets bit by a snake).
The discussion has been going on about this in the local MidSouth SCBWI list, but also on blogs all over (like Neil Gaiman’s).
I am just disgusted. It’s bad enough that books are challenged for stupid reasons (I mean, come on — just using the word scrotum??) but for librarians to be censoring books because they are too scared to actually teach children is just…AGH. The most common reasoning from those who aren’t stocking it? Something along the lines of “Geez, I don’t want to be the one to explain what that is to a kid!”
Excuse me, but isn’t teaching children part of your job if you are a teacher or librarian? Isn’t that exactly the thing you are supposed to be doing?? There’s nothing dirty about body parts. But there is something wrong with librarians who don’t want to teach kids and who effectively censor books.
Just another thing that makes me glad to be moving out of the state.
As someone looking to leave Louisville myself, I have to say that moving to Kentucky was the worst mistake I ever made and I am looking forward to moving back to the north. Sorry but the south just doesn’t cut it. I would rather live in any northern state, northeast state, or West coast than Kentucky. Its just a pitiful place to live and a pitiful society of people. Stupid is as stupid does in KY. When the state is 47th in the number of college graduates that explains a lot. When you have people with 12 years of education who can’t even spell basic words, that says a lot.
Having lived in Kentucky for 3 years, its enough for me. I’m ready to move on and at 33 I am very much looking forward to leaving. Its very backwards here even more than some small Midwestern towns. At least living in somewhere like Illinois or Ohio you do have larger cities and generally a more cosmopolitan lifestyle. In Kentucky, its Louisville and the rest of the state and Louisville is nothing more than a big hick town with a lot of KKK types. Sayonara Kentucky and glad I am leaving soon
I’ve been out of KY for over 3 years now and am very happy about it. There are nice people there, but by and large, my experience wasn’t good. Sounds like yours wasn’t either!