Latest review: The Trumpet of the Swan → Read it
E.B. White wrote three books for children. As a culture we handed one of them a permanent seat at the head of the table (correct), gave the mouse one a movie franchise, and then agreed to never mention the swan again. I would like to for...
Somewhere around night four, my daughter stopped me between chapters and asked whose land the little house was on. She asked it flatly, the way she asks everything, like an auditor requesting a receipt. And the honest answer is right the...
On Thursday morning there was a carrot on the kitchen counter with two fork holes in it. Nobody would claim it. I asked the room in general what happened to the carrot and my four-year-old, without looking up from his cereal, said "THE B...
Somewhere around 1993 I spent an entire Saturday trying every key in our house on every locked thing we owned. Desk drawers, a toolbox, a suitcase in the garage that turned out to contain my dad's tax returns. This book is the reason. If...
Twenty-six publishers rejected this book. Twenty-six. Two dozen professional book-pickers, people whose entire job was recognizing good books, held A Wrinkle in Time in their hands and said no thank you. Then it won the Newbery Medal in ...
Somewhere around the third bedtime, my daughter stopped me mid-sentence and asked how much a train ticket to New York costs now. Not in a dreamy way. In a way that wanted a number. When I said I didn't know, maybe forty bucks, she asked ...
One of my favorite parts of the movie "Elf".. actually scratch that. I'm a card-carrying Millennial. ALL of "Elf" is my favorite part. Do you know the part where they are introducing Buddy the Elf's dad Walter Hobbs to the viewers? They ...
Read the post →"Oh I would never read Junie B. Jones to my kids, she's such a bad influence!" If you are a parent of a 5+ child you've probably heard this before. Luckily I didn't hear it before I first started reading the Junie B. Jones series to my k...
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