29 May 2010 IT'S A BOOK by Lane Smith, Roaring Brook, August 2010, 32p., ISBN: 978-1-59643-606-0

"Words in papers, words in books
Words on TV, words for crooks
Words of comfort, words of peace
Words to make the fighting cease
Words to tell you what to do
Words are working hard for you
Eat your words but don't go hungry
Words have always nearly hung me"  

-- Tom Tom Club, "Wordy Rappinghood"

Remember the big to-do in certain quarters over a young character's innocent use of the word "scrotum" in Susan Patron's Newbery Medal-winning THE HIGHER POWER OF LUCKY?  Well, that's what came to mind this week at Book Expo as I listened to a bookseller telling me how she is sure that none of her school library customers will be buying Lane Smith's delightful, literacy-promoting picturebook IT'S A BOOK.  As with the Patron book, the supposed controversy involves a word. 

The deal here is that one of the story's three animal characters is identified and depicted as a jackass (male donkey) and that Lane then subtly employs a humorous play on the word (being that the other dictionary meaning of jackass is "fool.")

I am sure that if a bookseller has convinced himself or herself that school library customers won't be buying the book, then he or she will inevitably become part of the same process of self-censorship that certain booksellers and school librarians practiced with the Patron book.  And that's a shame because if this one word was not in IT'S A BOOK then everybody would, instead, be talking about its substantial award potential and its capacity for encouraging kids to get away from the computer and pick up a book.

"How do you scroll down?

"I don't.  I turn the page.  It's a book."

 IT'S A BOOK is a fun little story about a monkey who is reading a book and the baffled jackass who is asking him questions about how it works.   

"Can it text?

"No.

"Tweet?

"No.

"Wi-Fi?

"No.

"Can it do this?  ZOOT

"No...it's a book."

Then, when the monkey persuades him to actually look at the book, Jackass becomes totally engaged in the story and does not want to return it.

And so the monkey prepares to go to the library (where he can borrow another book) and the jackass tells him, "Don't worry, I'll charge it up when I'm done!"

The mouse character, who earlier appears visually (as part of another play on words), but who has -- to this point -- been silent, responds:

"You don't have to...it's a book, Jackass."

Now, if I am a kid who hears about this book and wants to check it out -- and I am betting that IT'S A BOOK is going to get a considerable amount of press (in addition to the great trailer already posted on Amazon) -- then what am I going to think as far as its absence from my elementary or middle school library.  Again, this is an exceptional picturebook by an A-list award-winning, best-selling author/illustrator; a book that is promoting literacy and poking fun at those people who are forever glued to their computer screens.

I'm quite curious to see how this one will play out.  Especially when IT'S A BOOK starts showing up on a bunch of Best of the Year lists.  Including mine.

Richie Partington, MLIS
Richie's Picks http://richiespicks.com
author, I Second That Emotion: Sharing Children's and Young Adult Poetry
BudNotBuddy@aol.com
http://slisweb.sjsu.edu/people/faculty/partingtonr/partingtonr.php
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