DaytonDailyNews.com

Dayton reference librarian Tim Capehart wanted to pick a book "that would make people sit up and talk about the Newbery award."

So, when he served on the 15-member committee selecting this year's Newbery Medal winner — the top prize in children's literature — he threw out some controversial choices. A book about a boy with two mothers, for instance.

In the end the committee selected a book Capehart considered perfectly safe: The Higher Power of Lucky, by Los Angeles children's librarian Susan Patron. "Never in a million years did I think this would cause a scandal," Capehart said. "The book is at turns funny and heart-wrenching."

He didn't figure on the higher power of the "S" word. On the very first page, no less. The novel's protagonist, a 10-year-old orphan named Lucky Trimble, is crouching behind a Dumpster and listening in on a 12-step recovery meeting. She overhears a character known as "Short Sammy" talking about the time he saw a rattlesnake "biting his dog, Roy, on the scrotum."

Yep, it was that clinical-sounding word that has raised a national ruckus after Dana Nilsson, a librarian from Durango, Colo., posted a complaint last month on LM Net, a school library listserv. She said the word was inappropriate for the intended age group.

Capehart, who served as a children's librarian until last month, has yet to find a colleague who agrees with Nilsson. "Scrotum is the anatomically correct term for where the dog was bitten," Capehart says. "My personal take on the book is that it is a sweet story about a very real 10-year-old girl struggling to deal with her mother's death, feelings of loneliness, and fear of abandonment."

Nilsson described the use of the offending word as "Howard Stern-type shock treatment."

Really? You can't help wondering if she has ever listened to Howard Stern — or any pop music for the last few decades — if she can get so worked up about a straightforward anatomical term. Most parents can only dream their children are reading such a sensitively written Newbery award winner.

That's exactly what Nilsson appears to have accomplished. The initial publicity catapulted Lucky from the high 600s on Amazon to the top 50 and to No. 4 ranking on the children's best-seller list (a couple of spots below the two editions of the new Harry Potter book). "Thousands more children will read this book cover to cover than would have otherwise because they've heard it might be banned," Capehart says. "It is even true in children's literature and libraries: 'There is no bad publicity.' Those kids will be better off for having read this fabulous book rather than the 4,000th "Goosebump" book. Though I do think 90 percent or more of those kids will scratch their heads at the end and wonder what adults thought was so scandalous about Lucky."

For his part, Capehart enjoyed his first stint on the prestigious Newbery committee. "It was fun getting those 600 books in the mail," he says, "but it was a lot of work." And he got more than he bargained for — and exactly what he hoped for.

This year, without a doubt, people are sitting up and talking about the Newbery award.

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2209 or

mmccarty@DaytonDailyNews.com.