Really??? (a small rant for your saturday enjoyment)

My friend Christina teaches 5th grade literature at one of the Clarksville schools. She had the librarian bring her several books last week that a potential substitute could work on with the class. One of these books is called Swamp Angel. It is a story about a girl born and raised in the Tennessee woods that was bigger than everyone else and eventually became the greatest woodswoman ever. Well, a mean bear comes into their village and is eating everyone's food and causing a mess so they decide to have a contest to see who can kill this bear. The village men don't want the girl to participate because they think she should be home baking pies and quilting. So off go all the men on their quests to kill this bear.

The first man is found with a silly grin on his face having run into the bear and been "licked in more ways than one". Okay, there is a little bit of an innuendo there but I guess it could be overlooked. It's the illustration that drives this home. The drawing shows a woodsman with a barrel over his head, legs bent in at the knees and UNDERWEAR AROUND HIS ANKLES!!!! What in the world is this suppose to mean? Is the reader (mind you, the age for this book is 4-10 years old) suppose to draw the conclusion that the bear pulled this guys underwear down and licked his rear or worse (you see where I'm going with this). Furthermore, the "silly grin" on the guys face suggests that he enjoyed this run in with the bear. Wow...seems like a classic for your child's personal library!

Obviously my friend did not leave this book to be read aloud to her 5th grade class. She called the librarian and was told that it probably would not be removed from the shelf so Christina has kept the book to take to her principal next week.

This is just wrong on so many levels...