The Book

Last week I received an email from our school librarian. She wanted to let me know that Amanda had come across an anatomy book, and that because of a rather graphic section on the male sex organs, she thought she'd better find out from me first if it was okay for Amanda to take the book home. I thanked her for her concern, and requested that she send it over to me (I work in the school's business office) to review before giving it to Amanda. Then I started sweating. A lot. So I threw it out to my colleagues for discussion. "What do I do? Is 9 years of age too young to look at ... that ?" One saw no problem with it (but keep in mind that she was a hippie in the sixties), one felt she was too young (thank you!), one suggested an American Girl book that walks a girl through the changes in her body (a book that focuses on the female body, NOT the male body, thank you very much), and then one (our very quiet, MALE, tech director, who normally isn't in our office) just shook his head and said, "We never talk about stuff like this in my office."

Since one of my spiritual gifts is worry (some think it's a sin, but I beg to differ), I fretted all afternoon about THE BOOK and what kinds of questions I would soon have to answer with a straight face. Well, the book didn't arrive that afternoon, but was on my desk first thing the next morning ... a morning when Amanda had chosen to come up to my office before school instead of play on the playground! She gasped with delight when she saw it and grabbed it before I could even spit out the words, "Wait! You're only 9! You're too young! I'M too young! And when is Jesus returning anyway?!?!" Turns out that the book is one of those flap books, and out of ALL the stuff in there, she wanted to show me the TOOTH and all its different layers!! Well THAT was worry well spent.