From the November/December 2007 issue of The Horn Book Magazine

Letters to the Editor

July/August 2007 Horn Book

I have been a faithful Horn Book reader for seven years, both in my professional and personal mission to recognize and appreciate quality children’s literature. Although I have the option to read reviews on Amazon.com or other venues, I choose to subscribe to Horn Book because in addition to the reviews, I enjoy the articles and editorials that increase my understanding of books I have read, and introduce me to books I haven’t.

In the past, I have winced at occasional pieces that discuss sexuality in literature for youth. However, Patty Campbell’s casual use of the f-word and other crude terminology in her article (“The Pottymouth Paradox”) in the May/June issue made me especially uncomfortable. The July/August issue did nothing to ease my discomfort as Susan Patron boasted about public reactions to her use of scrotum and Michael J. Rosen described the trouble he had finding a better title to his book about balls.

I object to preoccupation with male genitalia in a respectable children’s literature journal.
Perhaps it will pass, I thought, and looked online to see what is coming in the September/October issue. But no! Not one, not two, but four articles discussing sex and homosexuality in literature for children. When will this end?

It is with deep disappointment and regret that I have cancelled the subscription I just renewed. I will have to look elsewhere for reviews and edifying critical content.

Megan E. Saben
Moneta, Virginia

Roger Sutton replies:

We’re always sorry to lose a subscriber, but I don’t know how the Horn Book can be “a respectable children’s literature journal” and not discuss gender, genitalia, and sexuality. All three are of more than passing interest to children and adolescents, and their literature — and critical inquiry into that literature — necessarily follows suit. I am not sure why Ms. Saben is blaming Susan Patron (or the Horn Book) for the fuss that greeted her use of the word scrotum in the Newbery-winning The Higher Power of Lucky. By no stretch of the imagination can Susan Patron be accused of “boasting.” Rather, she was defending herself against those who, like Ms. Saben, “wince” at the mention in a children’s book of a body part (a dog’s body part, no less) and seek to give that wince authority by suppressing what others may read. Had these attempts at censorship not been made, neither Susan Patron nor the Horn Book would have had cause to comment.

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