Grammy Lynn and Grampy Don gave us a huge box of books when the kids were young(er), books that were Alan and Amanda’s when they were kids.  It’s interesting reading them now.  Some are fun, some are classics and we have new copies of the exact same book, and others are just plain weird.  Many use the word “gay” in it’s original meaning, which is noteworthy only because no books use that word for that meaning today.  What made me think of this is last night I was reading Julius by Syd Hoff (author of Danny and the Dinosaur of which, at one point, we had four copies!).  The book is all about a man and boy who go to the jungle to find a gorilla for their zoo.  All the animals want to go to the zoo and are disappointed that only the gorilla is allowed to go.  Another book we have has a similar theme, something about elephants and they all want to go to the zoo.  I don’t think they write books like that anymore, do that?  These days it seems like zoos are an evil necessity, not a glamorous place where the animals all want to live.  The original Curious George is written such that George is living happily in the jungle, eating his bananas, and then the Man With The Yellow Hat “rescues” him from his normal life and brings him to a zoo.  Like this is a good thing.  Weird.

There are a few books that I have gotten rid of because I don’t like the general message, including “What Mommy Does” and “What Daddy Does.”  I laughed though, because a few days after getting rid of those two books I read a blog where the lady was talking about how much she loves these books and how important it is to teach these things.  Perhaps kids can just observe what mommies and daddies do these days, because a lot has changed since the writing of those books (even in our relatively traditional house)!  It’s fun to see how the content of kids books has changed through the years.

We got the bookshelf painted and put into the kids room so last night we went through the books and sorted them and put them on the shelf.  We have a lot of books!  I’m going to cull out a few more when the kids aren’t around (just the broken, missing pages, falling apart ones) but they like to cling to every single page, whether it’s attached to a book or not, so I have to do my collection trimming when they aren’t around.  Shhh….. ;)

Soon we’ll be getting out the holiday books too.  Yay!

On a completely different note, Alan and I are going out tonight.  I’m excited.  We’ve got a babysitter for the first time in awhile and we’re going to dinner and to see Red.  I hope it’s a good movie!  The previews look funny.