I keep thinking about my scariest experience teaching. Logically it should be when the bagel shop exploded nearby. Our preschool was just a couple blocks away. We felt the boom and had to evacuate. …

People can be deemed “bad parents” for so many reasons, but I believe most if not all of these issues are caused by lack of support. Screen time. Helpful for getting a small break or getting something done. Not necessary if there’s someone else available to supervise and play. …

Like many people I recently watched Don’t Look Up and am sad now. I stayed up not all night, but a couple hours pondering what would actually work to help climate change? I got to thinking about another thing I watched recently: The Food That Built America, specifically the story…

This classic Christmas song shows us that sometimes genetic mutations can be helpful. It also illustrates what society, particularly American society, values. Much like the peppered moths who discovered that blending into soot-covered things gave them an advantage, Rudolph learns that being useful helps him become a valued member of…

This classic picture book examines themes such as conformity, happiness, and gender. One can only guess why all these animals are together and getting dressed. The elephant, moose, and dog all wear clothing the way it’s intended. The turkey finds a way to mess it up every time. Strikingly there…

Alexandra Day’s classic novella takes the struggles of being a single parent to the absurd. In this horror story, stereotypical gender roles are also explored. This book would clearly fail the Bechdel test because the only female character is barely in it and only talks to a male dog. One…

The Book With No Pictures by B.J. Novak is an exploration of free will, control, power, and expectations. At first it appears that it is a boring book, like grownup books are because they don’t have pictures. Just as that is not true for all grownup books, that’s not true…

(Fun fact: when my oldest was first reading this book he pronounced the author’s name as Urlich Krill.) On its surface this appears to be a book about a hungry caterpillar. In some respects that is true, but it’s also more than that. The caterpillar represents all of us. A…

Click, Clack, Moo mixes the absurd with the real-life drama of workers’ rights, gender inequality, and the cattle and chicken industries. It is of course reminiscent of Animal Farm by George Orwell, but this book which is in picture book format and even comes in board book, was clearly intended…