What to Call this Blog Post?

I honestly don't know what to title this post since it will be covering a variety of topics.  Any suggestions will be considered.

Topic One:  I'm not missing
I know that I've only posted once this week and that's a shame.  I wasn't feeling great earlier this week so that meant I was sleeping all day on Wednesday-seriously-all day!  But I feel wonderful now.  I wonder if I had exhaustion?  All the starlets get exhaustion, except in their case it's more likely alcohol poisoning, but still.

Topic Two:  My Monarchs came in!
The Monarch Award is an Illinois Children's Choice Award for grades K-3.  I have vowed to myself that I will read all of the Monarch's this year.  Which is pretty easy because they are mostly picture books and mostly hilarious.  The above picture shows my first round of holds and I will be back next week to quickly review 10 Monarchs.

Topic Three:  Sarcasm Sign
I read an interesting article the other day about children's books with questionable morals.  It's called "9 Picture Books You Never Want Your Kids to Read" from the BabyCenter Blog.  I think that it might have needed a giant SARCASM SIGN!  Adults can get so defensive about children's books, saying this one is too materialistic, or that one is a thinly veiled critique of capitalism-blah, blah, blah.  Kids read for entirely different reasons, and some kids books are written more for the adults that read them aloud.

Take I Want My Hat Back by Jon Klausen.  It's a Monarch and a picture book your child should never read.  I read it this morning because the librarian told me it was funny yesterday.  And it is!  This bear has lost his hat and he goes off to find it.  He asks all of these animals if they have seen his hat, and none of them have, but one is lying!  And when he realizes it, he goes red!  And goes to get his hat back.  But what happened to the animal that had it?  He did not meet a good end.

Know this people, all across this country, children are singing about little monkeys getting eaten up by crocodiles and little fish getting eaten up by sharks.  They have no problem with comical animal on animal violence.  If you ask a child if they would like to pardon the last little monkey swinging from the tree, teasing Mr. Crocodile, cant' catch me, they will 9 times out of 10 say no!  EAT THE MONKEY!  That one soft-hearted kid that would pardon the monkey will likely grow up to bring us world peace, but the rest of the little heathens are just like you and me--we like to see people get what they deserve.  You tease the crocodile, you will be eaten.  Simple.

But Pinkalicious and Fancy Nancy make me a little nauseous.  I wouldn't read them to my kids, not because of the crass commercialism or blatant vanity but because I just can't take the girliness. Case in point, my sister and I are having a Facebook war over which movie franchise is better:  James Bond (brilliant) or Fast and Furious (seriously, I'm ashamed to say you are my sister-SARCASM SIGN).  She pointed out this was odd.  I pointed out that our husbands are lucky men.  Both of those points are true.

Enjoy your holiday weekend!  Enjoy reading in the sunshine, grilling out, and if you must, enjoy watching Fast and Furious 6.  I think my sister might be seeing it again!

Happy Reading!