[ISLMA-Share] Genius Files Question

[Email list for the Illinois School Library Media Association]

While at school working today, I had the chance to talk books with one of my colleagues 5th grade daughter, who happens to be a big fan of the Bluestem Award program (yeah!). After all the discussion recently regarding this particular book I thought I'd ask her opinion on the use of the word "retarded". She actually had to think about it, because she hadn't even noticed it. As she put it, kids use all kinds of words they shouldn't. If the author wants the characters in the book to feel real then they need to sometimes say words they shouldn't. If all the characters in the books were nice and polite, the books would be boring.

Well said, and from a ten-year-old.