A former board member of the West Salem (Wis.) School District is objecting to the presence in his grandson’s elementary-school library of Walter the Farting Dog. After pointing out to the board January 13 that the words “fart” and “farting” occur in the text 24 times altogether, Maynard Carlson seemed to have gained the sympathy of board President Greg Bergh, who agreed to schedule a special meeting “on whether to get rid of this particular book.” Bergh added that Carlson was correct to bypass the district’s reconsideration policy since the selection policy “did not work properly when the book was made a part of the elementary library.”
“I’m not totally unfamiliar with their policy on objectionable materials,” Carlson said in the January 28 West Salem Coulee News. “I just don’t want my grandson to graduate from middle school before anything is done on this book.”
Walter is the story of a dog who is rescued from a pound by two children whose father almost returns Walter because of the dog’s perennial gastrointestinal trouble until his flatulence saves the household from two burglars. In a January 29 interview with the Coulee News, Walter publisher Richard Grossinger of North Atlantic Books/Frog Ltd. characterized the book as a fable that teaches that having unattractive traits “doesn’t mean they can’t be successful or contribute to society.”
In a letter to the editor of the Coulee News, Bergh explained that the school district’s mission to “help guide and nurture our youth into adulthood with some semblance of dignity and manners” is not served by “the graphical depiction of flatulence being blown into someone’s face.”
Posted February 6, 2004.