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Just read about this mother in FL who wants her public library to segregate the YA books and label ALL YA books that refer to anything illegal or inappropriate. Um. Look, I have a clear idea of what I think is appropriate for my kids to read. I demand a high quality level for what I or my family spends our time and energy and thought on. But this lady's idea is just so wrong! Illegal? So...all those MG mysteries are now verboten?? Inappropriate--to whom? If characters eat pork, isn't that promoting inappropriate behavior as far as some people go? What about coffee to others? What if the bad guys are doing the inappropriate behavior? Because they're like, bad?

It's like she wants someone else to police the world for her kids. Yes, I think it's important to teach your kids to make good choices. But to do that, you have to have like, a choice. And getting someone else to screen your books for you just seems wrong to me. Since only she knows what she means by "inappropriate," shouldn't she be reading those books herself? If she personally read all those books and labeling them, maybe she'd have a better clue as to what is actually in them, and could guide her kids accordingly.

A few libraries back, I was browsing in the YA section and a mom was combing the shelves, her child's summer reading list in hand. She looked over at me and started complaining about the list. "They're all about WITCHCRAFT!" she said. "It's horrible!" Well, I'd read nearly all the titles on the list, and I promise you that none of them were promoting witchcraft. There were a couple of fantasy titles that promoted the general message of good vs. evil, and some contemporary-very-far-from-"witchcraft" titles that promoted things like premarital sex and drugs (but uh, they were "safe" because they weren't fantasy...right??). I tried to point out the many fairly innocuous books on the list and calm her down, but the thing is, she hadn't read any of them and probably didn't plan to--but she wanted a list nevertheless that would be, in her mind, "safe." 

You're the parent. If you want to teach your kids something, you can't just talk. You have to do it, too. You can't just abdicate decisions like that to someone else. It's a disservice to your children, because they won't always have a pre-approved list for everything they want to do. You teach them to recognize and discern, not to remove choice.

*off my soapbox now*

Do mama birds come back?

Today all at the same time I was holding my recovering-from-fever toddler while showing the house to a possible renter while the termite guy did his annual preventative spray while my landlord was trimming the front hedges. I completely forgot that there was a nest there until this afternoon when I went to gather up the trimmed stuff for the bonfire pile. That's when I found the next on the ground, with a nearly naked baby bird lying next to it. I carefully wedged the nest in the branches nearest to where it used to be, and carefully lifted the baby in a cloth and placed it in the nest. It's still breathing (and opens its mouth piteously every time the nest moves because it thinks its mama is back). I feel like a murderer! Is there any chance that the mother bird will find him? Birds don't have much sense of smell, and if they use sound, well, it's not really making much sound, either. I don't even know what kind of bird it is. :(

Please come back, mama!

Cheep cheep

Um, yeah. I'm now the foster parent of a baby bird. The kids are fascinated. I, on the other hand, am supposed to be feeding it every couple hours, day and night. Well, PMB is awake all night, so every time he stirs, I guess I'll get up and check on Birdie Baby Brother as well...

Actually, I doubt it will last the night. I brought it in, nest and all, since it was full dark and I'd been watching all day with no sign of any adults , and put it in a box on the counter. I don't have any heating lamps, so I've got just a desk lamp on it, but I still don't think it's quite warm enough. It looks like it just hatched. I just fed it baby cereal with an eyedropper (the last-ditch formula according to this website about it), and it was very hungry. It looks and moves just as I imagine a dragon would. I think I um, like birds better with some fluff on them--the dinosaur similarities are quite strong when they're naked.

Here you go:



And from the side/front: