Discovering Together: October 2007

A New Shock in the Kiddie Lit World

We took our weekly trip to the library the other day. I'm encouraging Keona to pick out his own books and in he was trolling down the isles throwing books in the basket in his own discriminating method at a pretty good clip. I noticed one go in about a fire truck which is the topic of the week at school, so that's can only be a good thing, right? Well, hold on to your fire pole because this book isn't just about fire trucks. "Fire! Fire!" Said Mrs. McGuire by Bill Martin , Jr. (Apparently this is a re-do of one written by his father in the 60s) First, it was your typical women can do anything book; the message was loud and clear which is fine. Anyone doing anything important in this book was a woman. A good lesson for my budding young stallions. They will respect the women of the early 21st century. However, I was taken aback by the appearance of Mrs. Votter, who needed water. She appears in a very short, red tank-top dress and stiletto heels while all the male fire fighters are completely useless as they leer at her like a bunch of addlepated teenagers. I mean really, is this the kind of thing you want to read to your 4 year old? I guess they are trying to entertain the reading fathers in kiddie lit because apparently these days they can't put aside their own entertainment needs long enough to read to their children!? Give me a break! This one is going back, unread.

The Grammar Patrol has Arrived in My Life...

Since my brother has all but stopped reading and pointing out all the grammatical deficiencies in my late night postings, I've been resting on laurels and thinking myself rather fine....until yesterday when Big K piped up from the back seat....to make a correction. We were talking about a fire truck making its way home. I said something like "he's" on the way home (referring to the truck, I think) and K says, "No, mom. You have to say "they" because there is more than one person on the truck. " I hung my head in shame all the rest of the way home. I could hardly face my grammar class that night.

Rain, rain....

Come and play...Kalani and I enjoyed a romp in the rain today. It was great fun, but Keona did not come and join us. He no longer likes to play in the rain, so he sat in the door and chided us. Neither boy made use of their brand new umbrellas purchased only minutes before. Kelani's plans were obvious. His umbrella stayed in the car. Keona spent his time on the way home trying to figure out how he'd get his umbrella in the house WITHOUT GETTING IT WET. I couldn't help but laugh, which of course made Keona ask why. I told him we bought the umbrella to keep HIM dry. He said he didn't want to get it wet because he wanted to take it inside to play with. I gave up and told him to put it under his raincoat.