sexuality in children´s literature

ok, so in the land that never ceases to amaze vis-a-vis its many contradictions, there is a furore brewing over the word "scrotum" which has made its way into a "children´s book". On the first page of "The higher power of Lucky" by Susan Patron, there is mention of the word "scrotum", which the ten-year orphan kid Lucky hears through a hole when someone mentions that a rattlesnake bit his dog on the scrotum. I think what´s disturbing for many, apart from the word, is that attention is drawn to it; Lucky proceeds, with her child´s mind, to dig deeper into the meaning of the word - to her, "it sounded like something green that comes up when u have the flu and cough too much"..or that it sounded medical and secret, but also important, one reads. Because of this brief passage, many school librarians plan to ban the book from elementary schools. to be fair, there have been varied reactions towards the whole issue with some calling for a more holistic view of the book without singling out words. Personally, i agree with the latter. The author has had to justify her use noting that it´s based on a true incident and besides, Lucky is in a phase of discovery- learning about language and body parts etc. I personally do not see what the link is between it being a true incident and her justification for including the passage...if it were not, would she not have mentioned it?
Well, this whole incident, apart from being hypocritcal, myopic and surprising considering the society we live in, reminds me of one i read of earlier in my country where the Education ministry wanted to band cell phones in schools because a sex ring had been formed with the circulation of vulgar and sexual images of girls having sex etc. Of course, the two topics are different altogether but what links them is the reaction by the authorities..who seem to invent vacuum like responses without even scratching the surface to see what the main issue at heart is.. i think on both sides, there is a lack of what real education is and how we deal with societal and other influences on our young, impressionable ones. I mean we are part of the technology, or as Cronenberg says, technology is an extension of us. We are a transformed society because of it, our bodies are transformed, what we see and how we think are revolutionised and we as adults need to be able to transmit this maturely to our young ones without these silly censoring and radical, couter-productive measures.. censoring a children´s book due to the mere mention of scrotum is ludicrous, especially when children more than eight (not wanting to generalise here) already have a list of synonyms for private and tabu body parts.. and let them slip unabashedly... i think what we need is precisely a wise yet cautious treatment of these topics at this very age to orient children in the understanding of sexuality etc..instead we prefer to just bury our heads in the sand and leave it up to tv, internet, advertisements, adult conversations etc... well, we are definitely living in postmodern times...