Keeping The Innocent Innocent

Wow!!! That is, I think, all I can say. I am basically speechless, which is quite rare.

Tuesday is Library Day in My Little Girl's 5k (AKA Kindergarten) class. She has brought home some very interesting books, but none compare to this one. It is a little book called In the Night Kitchen written and illustrated by Maurice Sendak. Sound familiar? Not to me; never heard of it.

I open this odd looking little book to find a baby with his booty sticking up and a little "something" barely poking around. I flip through the book and see full frontal three times. Needless to say I take it and prepare for a little sweet chit chat with the teachers this morning.

I politely say good morning, open the book, and ask them if we could try again. They were shocked. They had no idea that this was in this book and proceeded to tell me that they felt that the Librarian had no clue either. Really? She further said that she heard the girls giggling over the book, but all she saw was the hiney. Again...really? My child does not need to be looking at hineys in a book from the Catholic School Library! Who? Where is the responsibility?

I did a little research and became more disgusted with our Librarian for their lack of knowledge of the content they manage for the kids of the school. Especially when a friend told me that their librarian reads all books from cover to cover before they go on the shelf. Here is what I found:

Controversy in the United States

When Mickey (who looks to be about three years old) enters the Night Kitchen, he loses his pajamas and spends much of the story fully naked. Critics of the book object to Mickey's nudity (which explicitly depicts his penis and testicles), with some librarians drawing little pants on Mickey with a marker, or diapers with correction fluid. Some also take a Freudian interpretation of events, with the nudity, free-flowing milky fluids, and giant (allegedly phallic) milk bottle. Sendak himself claims not to have been trying to be controversial; his decision to derobe Mickey was to avoid the "mess" that falling into the batter would make of Mickey's clothes.

As a result, the book proved controversial in the United States on release and has continued to be so. The book has been ranked 25th place on the "100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990-2000" compiled by the American Library Association.

And there is another copy of this book that was checked out by MLG's best friend. I happen to work with her mom and she did not see it in her backpack last night. She has been praying her mother-in-law does not find it today when she picks her up.

Below are the cover and 3yr old boy flying around the pages...