No Wimmelbücher for America
» Prudes & Puritans
Germany’s Rotraut Susanne Berner is the author of the successful Wimmelbücher series for children.
She was approached by an American publisher. Then something terrifying to all Americans was noticed in one of the books. It was a part of an illustration of a museum scene:
… the main offending artifact was a tiny male statue and its microscopic penis.
On the page, the sculpture stands at a very unthreatening seven millimeters tall and the appendage could, at first glance, be dismissed as a wayward brushstroke. The “little willy” as Berner called it “was barely half a millimeter in length.” …
The author more concerned with personal integrity than lucre withdrew from the deal.
