Okay! I have polished up said kids books [see below] and I am determined to get back into the (grown-up book reading) saddle again. I've made lists. I have visited the library. I have visited my own collection of books, trucked two boxes of such to the best used bookstore in town and now I have both new books to my name *and* standing credit at said store for future reading indulgence. I am officially armed and ready for my upcoming summer vacation.

But I did want to make one point before I leave the topic of children's books behind. Each of the kids books that I had picked up - Figgs and Phantoms (sawlright) and Holes (a thing of beauty) - both happened to touch upon racism at its raw and ugly worst- racist language in the former and an attempted lynching in the latter. A lynching! There are few things more horrible, more terrifying, more soul crushing on this big blue marble than the existence of lynching and yet here it is, in the heart of a children's book.

TV is drool. Books rule.